Cathy's Bolognese Sauce

I am so excited to be making this for dinner tonight! My friend Cathy taught me how to make this simple but scrumptious sauce, which is high in protein and very satisfying. It's very simple and very affordable... and it's on the stove right now and it smells like heaven wafting out of a pot. Yay! :-)

Importantly, I used olive oil this evening, because I have it in my pantry. If you don't have olive oil, then you can manage with regular cooking oil. But you should absolutely add a big bottle of olive oil to your pantry wish list. It is a bit costly up front, but it will last you for a long time and is well worth the value.

Here is what you will need, and what I paid for each required ingredient:

1 lb of extra lean ground beef: $3.95
1 onion: $0.20 (from my sack)
3 small cloves of garlic: $0.05 (from my pack)
1 jar of strained tomatoes (mine was about 660ml, but give or take): $1.99
3 tablespoons of olive oil (you can use cooking oil if you don't have it): about $0.30 for olive oil (maybe $0.05 for cooking oil)
2 teaspoons of salt
a dash of black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon of dried basil (you can even skip this if you don't have it yet)

Plus:
Pasta of your liking - I chose fusilli for this, and I believe I spent $1.25
A handful of fresh spinach/baby spinach (this is entirely optional - see my "pasta note" below)

TOTAL: $7.74 for 4 super-generous, roll-me-into-bed servings; at $1.93 per serving.


Instructions:

Chop the onions and dice the garlic. Fry onions in olive oil on high heat until golden, and then add the garlic. Fry both for another 30 seconds.

Turn the heat down to medium. Add the minced meat, and stir the a wooden spoon to make sure that the beef doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and so that the meat breaks up into a grind. Add the salt, black pepper, and dried basil. Continue to cook the meat on medium heat, stirring regularly, until it is fully brown in colour but still moist. This should take about 10 minutes.

Add the jar of strained tomatoes. Stir. Turn the heat down to low, and put a lid on it. Set a timer to beep every 10 minutes, as that's how often you need to stir the sauce so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot. (I am writing this between 10-minute intervals!)

You can cook this for 30 minutes or an hour. Cathy cooks it for an hour, and so will I. But if you don't want to wait, then you can cook it for 30 minutes and it will be just fine.

On Pasta:

Tonight I am making durum wheat semolina fusilli because it goes really well with this sauce. But the type of pasta noodle you choose is up to you. Whole wheat pasta has a lower glycemic index than regular pasta, and works just as well with this recipe.

Here's what I know about pasta:

1. If it's not al dente, it's really bad for you. You should never overcook your pasta, as this will raise its glycemic index and lower its dietary fibre. Al dente pasta is a little bit chewy, and is NOT soft.

2. The water-to-pasta ratio in boiling matters in achieving a proper al dente pasta. Read the label and follow accordingly.

3. Add spinach! No one else I know does this, and it is completely unconventional (and a bit odd). However... I also haven't met anyone (including very traditional Italians) that has especially disliked this idea either.

What I do is throw in a handful or two of baby spinach into the boiling water and pasta and stir it in, one minute before the pasta is fully cooked (al dente). The spinach boils with the pasta for just long enough for it to wilt, but not long enough for all the nutrients in the spinach to break down. I then drain the pasta, as normal, and the spinach just wraps itself around the noodle. This adds a little bit of green to the dish, and doesn't especially change anything about the meal. Of course, this is just my fancy. Take it or leave it.

The result:

I'm so happy! I am 100% satisfied and I have lots of left-overs for tomorrow. Pasta and meat is great athlete food, so training tomorrow should be a breeze. Thanks Cathy for a great recipe, and happy eating everyone.


Enjoy! :-)