Pasta Bolognese

One of my friends is pregnant and due in August and this is a great time to make some comfort foods to freeze, so when she and her family are home the first week with the baby, they do not have to worry about cooking. I think I will make bolognese sauce, chicken pot pies, macaroni and a beef stew. My friend cooked the same for me and it was the best present ever. If you are visiting a family with a new baby, remember, bring food! Nothing else matters! I remember myself, I did not have the energy nor the time to cook at all.

About Tomato Sauce and Bolognese

I made pasta sauce numerous times. Sometimes using canned tomatoes, sometimes fresh and yes, sometimes I just opened a jar or a can of ready sauce, mixed it with pasta and dinner was ready. But nothing, absolutely nothing tastes better than homemade bolognese sauce. For the first time my sauce tasted like something I would eat at an Italian restaurant. I think the trick lies in cooking the meat separately and cooking the tomato sauce in another pan and mixing it just at the very end. My friend also gave me a tip of using few kinds of meat and that is what I did and the result was, what can I say, excellent and delicious.




















Meat Sauce:
500g lean ground beef
500g ground veal or pork, or mix both
Some olive oil and 2 tablespoons of butter
1 large or 2 medium Spanish onions
5 cloves of garlic or more, depending on how garlicky you like it
1.5 cup of chopped mushrooms
1 chopped green pepper
1 cup of chopped carrots
a handful of thyme and basil (I used dried)
salt and pepper to taste
2 vegetable stock cubes
A little bit of water
1 can of tomato paste


Fry the onion with garlic in some olive oil and butter. Add the mushrooms and fry until browned. Add the meat. Here is a tip: try to use your hands to break the meat into smaller pieces while putting it into the pan, you really need to have smaller pieces of the meat for best flavour and when you put the whole package into the pan it is really difficult to break it down with a spatula. Season with salt and pepper, thyme and basil, add the broth cubes with some water to prevent the meat from drying. Cook and keep on mixing. Add the tomato paste as well as the carrots. Add the pepper when the meat is completely cooked and the carrots are still crunchy.

Set Aside

Tomato Sauce

Olive oil
2 medium onions
10 garlic cloves (small)
3 cans chopped tomatoes (796 ml each)
1 cup white wine
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Basil and Thyme
salt and pepper



Fry garlic with onion; add white wine and crushed tomatoes, basil, thyme and brown sugar. Simmer until reduced, blend in the mixer to make a smooth sauce. Mix in with the meat. (I leave a bit of the chunky tomato sauce and mix it with the meat instead of blending everything)

Cook spaghetti in salted water. It is important to salt the water because the salt brings out the pasta flavour. You know you added the right amount of salt if the water tastes like the sea water. After the pasta is cooked al dente and you drained it DO NOT rinse it in water, but use the desired amount of the sauce and mix it right away. Rinsing it would stop the sauce from sticking to the pasta. And for the best flavour you need the sauce to adhere to the pasta. Otherwise you will end up with a plate of pasta in tomato soup.

If you try it let me know how it turned out.

Serve with freshly ground Parmesan cheese and a glass of red wine. It is a must! Enjoy!