Spaghetti Bolognese

When I was planning this week's meals, the one request that my dad made was pasta. I then typed in pasta in a Food Network search, and found this recipe. I had never made a ragu sauce before, so I was willing to try it. I did, however, make a few modifications to Anne Burrell's original recipe. Anne has the pasta mix in with the sauce and a bit of the pasta water, but since I was making two different pastas (gluten free and non-gluten free), I couldn't go that far and decided to simply serve the ragu separately as a sauce. The recipe also called for ground beef, but I find ground beef to be way too greasy, so I used ground turkey, which is leaner.

 

 

I found that the Vitamix works wonderful for pureeing vegetables and makes for a lot less mess to clean up. The puree bubbled almost as soon as I added it, and got the sauce off to a great start.



 

After about fifteen minutes, the water had evaporated from the puree, making it look more like a paste that I could easily push aside to make room for the turkey.

 

The turkey was easy to brown, and at first the puree remained the paste it was when I first added the meat. However, it soon blended in with the turkey fat, accounting for the slightly orange color you see.



 

The tomato paste went in after the turkey had cooked for about 20 minutes. I let the mixture cook for about 5 minutes.

 

Next, I added three cups of red wine. I have been told that you should cook with wine that you would drink, but as I am only eighteen I leave that business to my mom. I let the wine reduce by about half.

 

 

I added a bunch of thyme from my garden along with two bay leaves. Then I poured water to about one inch. Here I let the sauce begin simmering for 3 1/2 hours. As the sauce simmered, the liquid gradually began to reduce, so I kept adding water two cups at a time, letting it reduce, and then adding more water.

 

Here the sauce is halfway done simmering. You can see the water at the top that has been reducing.

When the sauce had about half and hour to go, I began cooking the pasta. I let the sauce simmer a little longer than 3 1/2 hours in order to allow the water to reduce more.

 

After the wheat pasta finished, I set the table. I always make the gluten-free pasta first so that the pot doesn't get contaminated by the wheat pasta. The wheat pasta is on the left and the gluten-free pasta is on the right. I actually was able to make the gluten-free pasta just right and not sticky like it normally gets. The sauce was great, and the pasta was so filling that I could only eat one helping. I guess I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.