SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

I find it hard to believe that I've been writing this blog for over six months and I still haven't shared my recipe for spaghetti bolognese (or "spag bol", as us Brits call it). This was my favourite meal as a child growing up in the 1980s, probably because it was one of the most exotic meals on the menu. Back in those days, spaghetti bolognese night was the only time we ever ate pasta (unless you count canned spaghetti in tomato sauce), which I find rather incredible considering how much of the stuff my own children consume!

This recipe is probably as far from a classic Italian spaghetti bolognese (or ragu) as you can get but it's the only version I can contemplate making because it's the dish of my childhood. It's not my mother's recipe, but it tastes similar (from what I can remember) even though I've made some tweaks to make it more acceptable to my own children. They are not keen on "bits" so I've learnt to grate the carrots rather than dice them, and to use passata in place of canned tomatoes for a smoother sauce - and cleaner plates!

The recipe I've given below serves four adults, but the sauce is ideal for batch cooking so the ingredients can easily be doubled, or even tripled if you have a large enough saucepan. I also use the sauce as a base for lasagne (recipe to follow another time), which is a fabulous dish to serve when you have a crowd to feed.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Serves 4

2 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 small carrots, peeled and coarsely grated (100g prepared weight)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
500g lean steak mince (5% fat)
1 reduced-salt beef stock cube
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp dried mixed herbs (I like to use Italian seasoning)
400g passata
350g dried spaghetti
grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

Heat the oil over a low-medium heat, then add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the carrots and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute.

Increase the heat and add the mince and cook, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until browned all over. Crumble over the stock cube and stir until thoroughly combined.

Add the tomato purée, Worcestershire sauce, herbs and passata. Season to taste with pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low-medium and simmer for at least 25 minutes, or until the sauce is thick and reduced.

Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, then add the spaghetti and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until tender but firm to the bite. Drain and transfer to dishes along with the bolognese sauce. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Tips

• There's no reason why you couldn't add extra vegetables to the sauce - mushrooms work especially well, but finely diced red peppers or celery, or grated courgette would also make fantastic additions.
• The bolognese sauce freezes successfully and is very useful to have to hand when you need a quick dinner. Freeze in single portions in freezerproof containers or freezer bags. Remember to label and date them - unless you enjoy playing freezer roulette!
• When I'm cooking meals that the children will eat, I only season with pepper as I figure that some of the ingredients I use (for example, the stock cube, Worcestershire sauce and Parmesan) are salty already.

CLASSIC MACARONI CHEESE

Macaroni cheese is a staple meal in our household. My eldest daughter ranks it as her joint #1 meal (along with fish and chips) and my husband is a massive fan too since it was his favourite dinner as a child. Therefore, I thought it was about time that I shared my recipe for a classic macaroni cheese. I've called it 'classic' because it is a fairly basic version that could easily be adapted to include other ingredients. I like to mix in cauliflower and broccoli florets, and my family enjoys it with sweetcorn and ham. To be honest, I don't always add the crunchy topping because the kids are often screaming (literally!) for their dinner and don't want to wait the extra five minutes it'll take to sort this out. It is a nice addition on those occasions when mealtimes aren't quite so fraught though.

I feel I should apologize for posting yet another pasta recipe but the truth is that my family eats a LOT of pasta. I have to make a conscious effort to limit pasta to just three dinners a week, such is my small girls' appetite for the stuff! I am yet to meet a child that doesn't like pasta (although I'm certain they must exist) but when I was growing up in the 1980s we only ever had pasta as spaghetti Bolognese and canned spaghetti in tomato sauce. I often wonder how my mother coped without this fantastic fallback ingredient, which is so cheap, easy to store, quick to cook, and versatile.

For ages, I didn't think I could make cheese sauce – I remember using cheese sauce granules that you mixed with boiling water when I was a student. It was pretty artificial-tasting! I finally got the hang of making cheese sauce when I was cooking baby purées for my oldest child – she developed a taste for a particular purée that was made from cheese sauce mixed with mashed cod and vegetables, which I ended up making countless times. I discovered that warming up the milk before adding it to the butter and flour mixture made the process a lot easier, not to mention quicker, and I've never looked back!

Classic macaroni cheese

Serves 2 adults and 2 children (generously)
300g dried macaroni

Cheese sauce
30g butter
30g plain flour
300ml full-fat milk
good pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
90g vegetarian extra-mature Cheddar cheese, grated

Crunchy topping
20g natural dried breadcrumbs (I like to use panko)
30g vegetarian extra-mature Cheddar cheese, grated

Bring a medium-sized saucepan of water to the boil. Add the macaroni, bring back to the boil and simmer for 10–12 minutes (I find that macaroni takes longer to cook than other pasta shapes), until tender but firm to the bite.

Make the cheese sauce while the macaroni is cooking. Put the butter in a small saucepan and melt over a low–medium heat. Pour the milk into a jug and microwave for 2 minutes to warm through. Once the butter is bubbling, add the flour, stir to make a paste and allow to bubble for 1 minute. Start adding the warmed milk to the butter and flour mixture, a little at a time, stirring vigorously until each addition has been incorporated. To start with, the mixture will form into a lump but just keep stirring frequently and once you've added enough milk it will transform into a smooth sauce. When you have added all the milk, increase the heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring frequently, for a further 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and add the nutmeg and cheese, then stir until the cheese has melted and the sauce is smooth.

Meanwhile, preheat the grill to medium.

Drain the macaroni and tip it into the saucepan containing the cheese sauce. Stir until the pasta is thoroughly coated in the sauce. Transfer to a 1.5-litre baking dish.

Mix together the breadcrumbs and the remaining cheese, then scatter over the macaroni and cheese sauce. Place under the preheated grill and cook for 5 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown. Serve with freshly cooked vegetables (frozen sweetcorn and peas are our favourites) on the side.
    

BASIL PESTO

I absolutely love pesto. In our household, we mostly stir it into pasta – it makes a great change from a tomato-based sauce – but there are plenty of other ways to enjoy pesto, whether you spread it on sandwiches or bruschetta, drizzle it over pizza, or simply use it as a dip.  

I like to make my own pesto – I quite enjoy the ritual of whizzing up the vibrant green gloop in my food processor (I have a special mini one that makes the job especially easy). Of course, you can buy perfectly decent ready-made pesto in the supermarket but in my opinion home-made just tastes so much fresher. It’s a good emergency recipe too because I usually have all the ingredients to hand, including a pot of basil on my kitchen windowsill. Plus – a major bonus in my eyes – fresh pesto can be frozen, meaning I never waste a drop. I freeze mine in small (100ml capacity) pots that I originally bought when I made baby purées.

A good rule of thumb when making pesto is to use a single quantity of basil leaves and double quantities of pine nuts and Parmesan. So, for example, if you have 20g of basil leaves, use 40g of each pine nuts and Parmesan. I don’t tend to measure my oil; I just add the oil until the consistency of the pesto seems right, but the quantity given in this recipe should yield a thick but spoonable pesto – feel free to adjust to suit your own personal preference.

Basil pesto

Makes approximately 200g
50g pine nuts

25g fresh basil leaves
50g Parmesan cheese (or vegetarian alternative)
1 garlic clove, crushed
75ml olive oil (regular is fine; not extra-virgin)
Freshly ground black pepper

Dry-fry the pine nuts in a small frying pan – they’re ready when they’re golden brown and you can smell a toasty aroma from the pan. Immediately transfer them to a plate to cool down – do not leave in the pan or they’ll burn.

Pick the leaves from the basil, then wash and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cut the Parmesan into cubes (you can grate it but I’ve tried both ways and can’t see any discernible difference in the finished pesto, and grating is frankly more effort).

Put the cooled pine nuts, basil, Parmesan and garlic into a mini food processor along with half the oil. Process until everything is well chopped, then slowly add the remaining oil until the pesto has reached the desired consistency. Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper – I don’t use salt because Parmesan can be pretty salty.

Hey presto – home-made pesto!

* Freeze any leftover pesto immediately in small freezerproof containers. To defrost, simply remove from the freezer and leave out on the side until fully defrosted. It’s not a great idea to defrost in the microwave because it’s too easy to overdo it and end up with a congealed lump but, if you’re in a hurry, you could pop the unopened container in a bowl of boiling water to speed up the defrosting process.

BASIC TOMATO SAUCE

For my first ever post (drum roll please!) I'd like to share my all-time most useful recipe - tomato pasta sauce. I just HATE to be without a batch of this in my freezer. I use it as a base to make all kinds of pasta dishes with just the addition of a few extra ingredients.

The sauce itself is pretty versatile too – you can omit the carrot and celery for a richer, more tomatoey (is that even a word?) sauce or add extra veg (such as fennel, courgettes and peppers) to make it taste even more virtuous. It also helps me sneak in vegetables that my kids wouldn’t even look at in their fresh state.

My kids (and husband) prefer a smooth sauce so I’ll whizz it up in the pan using a stick blender just before serving, but you can leave yours chunky if you prefer.

Today I’m just sharing the basic recipe, but I will definitely return to this to fill you in on other ways to use and adapt this true mother of a sauce.

I’ve given quantities below for a single batch but I ALWAYS make three or four times this amount in one go – after all, the beauty of this sauce is that it can be frozen. I tend to freeze the finished sauce in portions of 375g, which I find is plenty to add to 300g (dry weight) pasta to feed a family of four. If there are any smaller amounts of (not previously frozen) sauce leftover, I put them in small pots and freeze for the odd day when the kids are eating dinner on their own.

I use a supermarket basics range for the tomatoes; there’s probably a bit more juice in the can than you get with premium brands but, other than that, I honestly can’t tell the difference.

Basic tomato sauce

Makes approximately 425g

1 small onion

1 carrot

1 celery stick
1 garlic clove
1 tsp olive oil
400g canned chopped tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
½ tsp sugar

First, prepare the vegetables. Peel the onion and carrot and chop into fairly small dice. Trim the celery and run a vegetable peeler along its length to remove the strings, then chop into the same size dice as the onion and carrot. Peel and chop the garlic.

Heat the oil in a saucepan, then add the onion and cook for about 10 minutes, until softened. Add the carrot, celery and garlic and continue to cook for a further 10-15 minutes, until really soft. It’s important not to rush this stage; if the vegetables start sticking to the bottom of the pan, reduce the heat and partially cover with a lid so that the vegetables begin to sweat.

Add the tomatoes, oregano, bay leaf and sugar, increase the heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes (or longer if you have time), until the sauce is thick and reduced. Remove and discard the bay leaf. If desired, blend in the pan using a stick blender until smooth.

* Freeze any leftover sauce in freezerproof containers. To defrost, either remove from the freezer and leave out on the side until fully defrosted or, if you forget to do this, pop the container minus lid into the microwave and heat on LOW for short bursts, stirring in between, until defrosted.