I’ve now been tagged in two memes. I’m a good sport when it comes to such things. So thanks Ali. I will use this oppor­tu­nity to once again share one of my recipes with the world.

Accord­ing to the rules of this “meme” I’m to pick an ingre­di­ent from Ali’s recipe and share a recipe that uses the ingre­di­ent. Luck­ily there are a few ingre­di­ents to choose from… I’m going to go with but­ter. Because that rules almost noth­ing out. And I’m going to share my recipe for spaghetti bolog­nese. It’s not quite a “from scratch” spe­cial — I could, given the incli­na­tion, prob­a­bly use fresh toma­toes. But I haven’t yet. And I like this one a fair bit…

What you’ll need (I nor­mally do a big batch of this because it’s just as good the next day, and the next, etc.):

Ingre­di­ents
(some quan­ti­ties are estimates)

• Spaghetti
• 1kg Mince
• 1 big tin of Heinz Tomato Soup (500ml)
• 1 big tin of crushed/diced tomatoes
• 1 jar of sun dried tomatoes
• Lots of mushrooms
• A car­rot (grated)
• 2 medium sized onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Assorted herbs and spices (of an Ital­ian bent)
• 100ml of cream
• Enough but­ter to lubri­cate the saucepan/wok, and nicely brown the onions and garlic

What to do

1. Slice the onion, crush one clove of gar­lic, cook on medium to high heat with the butter.
2. When the onion starts brown­ing, add the mushrooms.
3. Add the mince.
4. When the mince starts to brown add the sun dried toma­toes (I nor­mally add a lit­tle bit of the oil from the sun dried tomato jar/container too. Stir them through.
5. Add the tinned tomato and tomato soup — tomato soup is great because it has a rich, slightly salty flavour. This mix is, in my opin­ion, bet­ter than any pasta sauce on the market.
6. Cook your spaghetti while let­ting the bolog­nese simmer.
7. Add the carrot.
8. Add the cream, stir through, the sauce should be a goldy colour.
9. Crush your other gar­lic clove and stir it through the bolog­nese. Add your herbs based on taste and per­sonal preference.
10. Your spaghetti should be ready soon — throw a piece at the wall to see if it sticks (remove any water from the spaghetti strand first).

Serve in a bowl with cheese.

The end.

I tag whichever four of you vol­un­teer first.

We’ll prob­a­bly be doing this with our cook­ing friend this week — let me know if you’ve got ideas for ingre­di­ents that I might not have considered.

Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He is currently a student at the Queensland Theological College. In a previous professional life he worked in public relations for an economic development and tourism marketing organisation. He is married to Robyn. He likes coffee and the internet.

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