Easy Bolognese sauce

A great way to stretch a pack of ground beef is making Bolognese sauce, and this recipe works great, even for people with less than perfect knife skills and not a lot of time (I'm guessing you are not an Italian nonna with a free afternoon).

Ingredients (6 to 8 portions)

500 g. of ground beef

2 small cans of chopped tomatoes (about 500 gr.)

2 small carrots

1 bell pepper

1 onion

4 garlic cloves

1 cup of water

3 tablespoons of tomato paste

5 tablespoons of oil (if you have it, use olive oil)

5 mushrooms

1 tablespoon of oregano

1 teaspoon of rosemary

2 tablespoons of sugar

Directions

Peal and chop the onions in medium sized pieces. Put them in the blender with the peeled garlic cloves and the cup of water.

Heat the olive oil in a deep pot and empty the blender jar. Stir and cook for 4 minutes on high heat. Add the rosemary to the onions. Chop the carrots and the pepper in medium sized pieces and throw them in the blender with the water (you don't have to wash the onion left inside because it's all going to the same pot). Keep this close but don't put it on the pot just yet.

Add the ground beef to the pot and lower the flame to medium.

Stir and make sure that there are not big lumps of meat (break them with a spoon if you see any).

Add the blended carrots and the pepper to the pot. Stir.

Blend the chopped canned tomatoes and add them to the pot. Stir.

Add the tomato paste and the sugar. Stir. Let it cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Wash and slice the mushrooms and add them to the pot. Lower the flame a bit more and let it cook for 10 to minutes more. Add salt and  black pepper to your taste.

Why did I add sugar? Because sometimes canned tomatoes have an acidic aftertaste and this balances up the recipe (it's the same reason to add the carrots; in fact, if you don't feel like adding sugar to the recipe, just add an extra carrot).

You can serve this straight away (with optional -but highly recommended grated cheese on top) or store them in the fridge up to 4 days (or in freezer for up to 3 months). I always like to make a large batch and store a part, just for those days I'm in a hurry but I still want to enjoy a hot homemade meal.

Tip: Don't throw away jam jars, they are perfect containers for individual portions of sauce.

This recipe has an estimated cost of 1 to 1,5 euros per portion (including a generic brand portion of pasta and depending on how generous you are while serving). It can cost even lees if you substitute a part of the meat for more tomatoes and onions.