Ha, I notice it has taken me more than a month from the time I decided on a name for my public blog to actually sit down and start working! I have chosen a theme, am listening to inspiring music (at least to me – the Baguette Quartette station on Pandora which is French and has lots of accordion solos – love it!) and making the Lasagne Bolognese sauce in Bon Appetit magazine for this month. It is looking good and I am mostly following the recipe. If you know anything about me, I cannot follow a recipe to save my life and always end up adding something.
One thing I noticed is that there is no garlic in this sauce. I guess I have never made a “real” bolognese sauce before because I was astonished that it didn’t have any. I searched around on the web to see if garlic was missing from just this recipe but was surprised to find that bolognese doesn’t have any garlic in it… huh? I will wait to see how it turns out since I am addicted to adding garlic and hot peppers to most savory recipes. A short coming on my part, I am sure.
I do not have the time or energy for the full lasagne recipe, so I have decided to make a baked ziti with the sauce instead… yum!
Okay – so here I am after adding all the ingredients – subbing red wine for white, as I had it open and half & half for whole milk. It has been cooking about 1 hour so far.
Photo by iPhone… I am experimenting.
After 3 hours, 4 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of water on extra low (which on my gas stove turns on and off the heat). I opened a new box of chicken stock and just had to use it all. It didn’t seem to make sense to only use the 3 cups the recipe called for.
I couldn’t stand the idea that this had no garlic in it and did more research. My favorite Italian friend assured me that she puts garlic in her Bolognese but I felt compelled to follow most of the recipe as this was my first time making it. It is very heavy on the meat flavor which is a bit overwhelming for me as I have been 2/3rds vegan/vegetarian for months. It really tastes great but meaty. I am not waiting the advised 24 hours to let it develop more flavor but I did freeze some of it and will use it in something else.
I did decide to put half the sauce in a baked ziti but only had Fussili pasta so technically baked Fussili pasta with Bolognese sauce, shredded part-skim mozzarella and topped with a parmesan blend.
Really wonderful… additively so. I actually had to have seconds, which I never do… along with another lovely glass of red wine. I would have to say it was worth making and it makes a LOT so that I have some in the freezer for another day when I want to have a luxuriously meaty meal! All four boys gave two thumbs up.
I was going to have roasted asparagus with this but unfortunately, my asparagus went bad. Bummer. I was saving it… I guess too long. Thus, making it even more necessary to have a second helping… mmmm.
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