Looking back.../Bolognese sauce

I started writing a diary about my kitchen life back in January. By and by it has developed and now is full of a range of recipes I use and have tried. I have discovered ingredients I haven't tried to cook with before, and also been able to adapt a few good stand-bys using what ingredients I had available. Not having the ingredients hasn't put me off doing that.
My writing is better too - from simple bullet points with no recipe attached, to comments and full recipe details. I am starting to pick up my diary to search for recipes, rather than the shelf of cooking books!
From today, I will dip back into those entries in the diary to pull out recipes and intersperse my writing with those older 'posts'. I will even be posting them when, like tonight, I have used them again.

An extremely cold day today (it's supposed to be Spring). Luckily we have avoided snow, but the bitter wind is really bringing the temperature down. I feel sorry for the solitary daffodil in the front garden, that thought it was safe venturing out in last weeks' sunshine!
So, tonight H and I are having bolognese sauce with linguine (as a change to spaghetti). It is one of the two staples I equipped T with before he headed off to Uni last year. I cooked this back in January, and have since tried a more traditional one from Elizabeth David's "Italian Food". I enjoyed the latter, whereas H preferred the more tomato-ey original she had been bought up on. Here are both diary entries, with the recipes:

Thursday 10^th January 2013

Mum’s birthday! Out of the fridge comes the cointreau butter icing to come to room temperature during the day and be ready to ice the carrot and orange cupcakes to deliver with my card. Cupcake stand is washed and at the ready!

Hooray for pre-prep! Home from work, butter icing into piping bag, cakes decorated – easy as 1,2,3… oh, and a sprinkle of edible gold glitter to add a bit of birthday sparkle ***

Before leaving there’s time to make my own Bolognese sauce to eat on our return:

Chop ½ onion (I only ever use ½, but use 1 if you prefer) and ½ a red pepper. Heat oil in a pan, add the vegetables, cover and sweat for 2 mins on a medium heat.

Add a tub of pancetta (I buy packs of 2 handy tubs – just enough for 2 meals). Fry for 2 mins before adding a 450g pack of mince. Fry this until it has browned, stirring to mix the 3 ingredients. Next add a tin of chopped tomatoes, followed by half of the tin filled with water. Add a sprinkle of dried herbs, a pinch of salt, 1 tblsp balsamic vinegar and 1 tblsp tomato puree (double concentrated). Give the sauce a good stir to blend the ingredients before leaving to simmer for 25 mins. Serve with spaghetti and a good grate of Parmesan cheese. 

Monday 4^th February 2013

Bolognese sauce or ‘Ragu’ as it is truely known. My normal recipe involves mince, a tin of tomatoes, etc… But tonight I am opting for a more traditional method courtesy of Elizabeth David (or actually of Zia Nerina, whose recipe was given to Ms. David). I am a few veggies short – 1 carrot and 1 piece of celery, because they got eaten at the weekend and don’t have the chicken livers, but this does not halt my endeavours. What would Zia do?

So, fry some cubetti pancetta in a tblsp oil and 1 tsp butter, then add a chopped medium onion. Cook this until the meat is browned and the onion soft, then add 500g minced beef and stir/break up until it too has browned. Add 3 tblsp tomato puree, a glass of white wine (normal size, not weekend size!), seasoning – watch the salt having used the pancetta – and a scraping of nutmeg. Stir to mix all the gorgeous flavours together, and then add 3 wine glasses of beef stock or water. I added water and ½ a stock cube, and then decided to add another squirt of tomato puree to add to the colour. Let the sauce bubble away gently for 30-40 mins before serving with spaghetti and topping with grated Parmesan cheese. Mmmm… Thank you Zia!

P.S. I will buy some chicken livers for the freezer as Mum suggested, so next time I can add even more flavour.