I wanted to end with a classic pasta dish so that it would satisfy what anyone would imagine as a pasta dinner. You can’t go wrong with meat sauce! We happened to have a large amount of very lean sliced beef so Lon got to play with our new grinder attachment. Because it was so lean, I added pancetta to this recipe but I still think you should use fattier meat. I got to make mushrooms since Lon wasn’t going to be home but I still chose to make it a mushroom topping as opposed to mushrooms in the sauce because I figured we would have left-overs, and Lon would want to eat it.


Good Old Meat Sauce

  • 5 ounces Pancetta, chopped
  • 2 onions chopped
  • 2 small or 1 medium carrot, brunoised
  • 2 pounds of lean ground beef
  • 2 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
  • 1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
  • 1 (28 oz) can crushed tomato
  • 12 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
  • 2-3 bay leaves

1. Heat a large pot on a medium flame. Add Pancetta and brown for about 8 minutes.
2. Add onions and carrots and sweat for about 4 minutes.
3. Add ground meat and stir until browned evenly, about 8-10 minutes.
4. Stir in diced tomato, tomato sauce, crushed tomato and bring to a boil.
5.Turn down to a simmer and add garlic and bay leaves. Cover and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. (Can be made a day or two before.)
6. Remove bay leaves. Toss with any kind of pasta and serve.

Criminis

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 10 ounces criminis, cut in 1/4 inch thick slices
  • 4 cloves minced garlic
  • salt and pepper

Melt butter in a large pan. Toss the criminis and garlic in the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Toss around until cooked through and tender. Place on top of the meat sauce.

I served the meat sauce and criminis with 1 pound of thin spaghetti. We came very close to finishing the pasta.

posted by jessica at 09:11 PM Filed under Italian, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.