As promised, I spent the last weekend with my 5 year old nephew.  And as promised, WE made pasta… YAY!  We had a hard time deciding between white and red sauce, but finalized on some tomato-ey goodness.  First thing we did was google how to say bolognese properly.  My nephew decided he wants to pronounce it the Italian way, with a “Ñ” and thought that was fun-er to say.

As much as I love spending time with my nephew, cooking with a 5 year old is a whole different story.  There’s a lot of “oh no no no… ” and “…. eekkk..!”.  But we conquered the kitchen and made ourselves some amazing Spaghetti Bolognese 🙂

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 large celery sticks, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed (we used 4 cloves, because that’s just how much we LOVE garlic 🙂 )
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 fresh thyme sprigs
• 1 rosemary sprig
• 28 oz tomatoes (we used tomato sauce, but you can any other form of tomatoes of your preference)
• 1 cup beef stock
• salt and pepper to taste

To Serve:

• 1 lb spaghetti/pasta of your choice
• finely grated parmesan

Instructions:

1. Brown the beef in a large pot until well browned.  Remove from the pot and set aside.
2. In the same pan, add a splash of oil and fry the onion, carrot and celery for 10-15 mintues until soft and fragrant.
3. Add the garlic, bay leaf, thyme and rosemary and fry for another minute or two.
4. Add the beef back to the pot along with the tomato sauce and beef stock.
5. Lower the heat and cover.  Simmer the sauce for 30 minutes.  If the sauce is too watery, remove the lid for the last 10 minutes of simmering so the liquid can reduce.
6. In the meantime, cook the pasta in a big pot of boiling salted water.
7. Serve the bolognese with the cooked spaghetti and generous grating of Parmesan.