| A Bolognese sauce (and I'm sure a proper chef would tell you all the ways I'm getting this wrong) is one of those things you can make a big old pot and freeze down for multiple meals. Brown some ground meat. I'm a fan of some spicy pork sausage and beef. Figure a pound or so. Drain and set aside. Dice up some bacon - figure a quarter of the pack or so. Peel a couple carrots and drop them in with the bacon. Peel and cut an onion in half, toss it in. Do a couple stalks of celery too as the bacon cooks. Once the bacon starts to crisp up, drain the fat if you need to. Add the meat back in and leave in the veg. Add a can of diced tomatoes. Add a cup of chicken stock. Add a small can of tomato sauce. Stir and cover, and let it sit on the stove for 3-4 hours at a simmer - just making the occasional bubble. Dice an onion, a few carrots, and some celery. Smash/dice a few garlic cloves. Grab another pan, drop in a 1/4-1/2" chunk of butter, and saute up the onion for a couple minutes, add the carrots, garlic, and celery. When the chucks of garlic start turning brown, throw a half a cup or so of wine (red, white, whatever you've been drinking while you cook) into the pan and scrap up all the good stuff. Take it off heat. Fish out the original veg you added in a few hours ago, and dump in the fresh stuff you just cooked up. Add some basil and oregano (fresh if you have it) if you have any and let it simmer for another 30 minutes. Add a cup of milk or cream and let it simmer uncovered for another 15 minutes or so. |