Quincy's Cooking Adventures: Pasta Sauce Recipe

This is seriously the best pasta sauce EVER. In my humble opinion ;-) Once you've done all the chopping, the rest of it takes about as long as cooking up the spirali does, so it's convenient in that respect :-)

Ingredients

Oil or butter
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 red capsicum, finely chopped
200g champignon mushrooms, sliced
1 can of diced tomatoes
2tsp crushed garlic
500g minced beef
2tsp paprika
Shiraz
Tasty cheese
Salt

Method

1. Heat up the oil (or butter) in a saucepan and add the onion and capsicum. Start boiling water for the pasta itself at the same time as you put the oil into the saucepan, and add the pasta as soon as the water starts to boil.

I decided to use butter this time. This was a day before I discovered that I couldn't have dairy any more.

The onion is sitting in my Kambrook thingy that came with a hand blender. Oolon's mum was wonderful and gave it to me for Christmas! :-) That thing makes chopping onions an absolute breeze.

2. Once onion is brown and capsicum is softer, add the mushrooms and brown them. You can add the mushrooms and capsicum at the same time; it won't make much difference.

3. Add the garlic (though this can also be added after the beef, if you want to avoid burning it to the bottom of the pot)

4. Add the minced beef and add salt to taste. Stir until beef is brown.

I bought too much meat.

5. Add the diced tomatoes and allow to simmer until the pasta is done.

6. Once the pasta is strained, add paprika* and a dash of wine. Stir well.

It should be a nice earthy red colour. The wine darkens it, the paprika reddens it.

7. Simmer until the sauce is thick, particularly if you're planning to freeze any of it.

8. Serve with tasty cheese and a glass of that same wine.

So, there it is! My favourite pasta sauce recipe! :-) Enjoy!


*If you are making a tomato-baseed sauce and the recipe says to use any kind of sugar at all: DON'T. If you wish to sweeten a tomato-based sauce, use red paprika. That's what it is for.