February 10: Spicy Sausage Bolognese Sauce

This recipe is from the fall favorites section of the cookbook. It's one of those that are great for busy nights. Tonight was not-so-busy, because they canceled evening church service. It rained all day, and I think the rain is freezing. I hope it will be warm tomorrow so we won't have to deal with ice. I started by gathering the ingredients at about 1:00 pm.

I browned a pound of ground beef and a pound of hot Italian sausage in 1 tbsp of olive oil.

 

I transferred the meat to the crock pot and wiped out the skillet, then added another tbsp of olive oil and 1/4 lb of pancetta.

I transferred it to the crockpot when it was crisp, then added a diced onion, 2 diced carrots, a diced stalk of celery, some salt and pepper. I cooked that until the onions were translucent:

To that I added 3 tbsp of tomato paste and 1 tbsp of minced garlic. That cooked for one minute, and then I transferred it to the crockpot:

Then I stirred in 2 cans of drained diced tomatoes, 3/4 cup of milk, and 3/4 cup of red wine.

That cooked for 6 hours on low, I cooked up some spaghetti, and served the sauce on top with some grated Parmesan. This recipe actually makes a double batch, so 1/2 of it is set aside to use later.

I thought this sauce was possibly the best spaghetti sauce I've ever had! My oldest daughter really liked it too. The younger one and DH didn't like the tomatoes, but they liked it other than that. Maybe next time I'll try it with crushed tomatoes instead of diced. It was a little spicy, but not too much for me. I actually thought it tasted like pizza.