Tuesday 27/09/16
We went a little to town on this one; the great thing about spaghetti sauce is that you can literally put anything you want into it!
For this one, we got cauliflower, broccoli, sweetcorn, yellow pepper and mushroom in addition to the basic Bolognese recipe, quantities of which will be below (will feed four people) if you want to do the same!
1 can of plum tomatoes (cut up in the can with a large knife) 1/4 of a large tube of tomato puree (or a tin) 1 onion 2 cloves of garlic About a teaspoon of sunflower oil Put the sunflower oil into a saucepan on moderate heat to heat up While it's doing so, chop up the onion (see the onion tag for tips on how to do so with minimum pain and tears!) and the garlic (peel the clove, then smash the clove with the flat of a knife before chopping up finely). Check the oil is hot enough by taking a little bit of garlic or onion and dropping it into the oil - if it sizzles, it's ready! Once it's ready, drop in the onion and garlic, and spread around evenly with a spoon or something like that to cook. Once they're cooked, add in the tomatoes and puree and stir. There! That's a basic sauce, which you can put literally anything you want in. We decided to take two handfuls of frozen sweetcorn, a yellow pepper (wash, take out the stem and the seeds, then cut up into chunks), four mushrooms (wash well, chop up stem first then across the cap), a large floret of washed cauliflower and two florets of washed broccoli (chopped up into about a centimetre sections) to add to ours! Add the broccoli and cauliflower first, wait for five minutes, then add the sweetcorn, one minute, then add the mushroom and sweetcorn. While that's cooking, take your spaghetti (about a quarter of a handful for each person) and put it in a different saucepan, then add boiling water. Switch on heat, and boil until the spaghetti is soft, but not falling apart.
By this time, the sauce will be ready (turn off heat once the cauliflower is starting to get soft), so use a saucepan lid to keep the spaghetti in the saucepan while draining off the water, then put straight onto the plate, with as much sauce as you want.
We wanted to make it look fancy, so we bought a basil plant to keep the coriander company, and took two leaves to garnish!
As the sauce makes four portions we decided to keep half in a lunchbox in the freezer, perfect for a quick meal later in the week! We hope you enjoy!