Bodacious Bolognese

by Mara @ What's For Dinner? on August 16, 2009

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I hope you all had an amazing Sunday! I decided while at Super Target today that I wanted to make something slow and comforting for dinner since it was thunderstorming like no other. Chili? Nah, I just made chili. Then it hit me: Bolognese sauce!

I have made this bolognese sauce twice before. Once, it was spectacular, and another time, even better. They (whoever “they” are) say “Third time’s the charm” and this is one of the few times I agree! I don’t know if it was the replacement of dried thyme with fresh, or the extra time and effort I put in to take pictures this time, but it was out of this world!

I took advantage of cooking in daylight to take some step-by step photos. One thing that makes this recipe really special is the finely ground vegetables that meld with the ground beef while cooking. I started with 2 small onions, 3 carrots, and 2 stalks of celery, along with 3 cloves of garlic in my high-class mixing bowl: my handled Pyrex.

Then Adam set to work with the stick blender to mash the vegetables into a course puree:

The key to this bolognese recipe is patience. Add the veggies to the pot, cook at least 20 minutes. Then add the beef: another 10. Then the tomato paste for another 10, then the wine for 15. Then, this time I added a bundle of fresh thyme that was so pretty I had to snap a picture:

Then, the real patience comes in… add water and reduce, then again, and again, until you’re left with a deep red meaty ragu that doesn’t even need pasta to make it a complete meal.

Seriously.

I put 7 (or maybe

gnocchi at the bottom of my bowl, topped it off with a ladle of sauce, and topped it with this delicious asiago parmesan mixture from Super Target.

And the world was good.

It just so happens that SonicTap has the perfect playlist to go with this meal! Italian Dinner Music complete with Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney would make this meal complete. View (and buy, if you want!) the playlist at SonicTap!

What makes tonight better is that I do not have to set an alarm tomorrow morning. I can sleep however late I need to, and hopefully it’ll be nice enough for me to walk outside.

Have a wonderful Monday all!