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Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3.5 (ZReboot 3.5) recipe. Spaghetti bolognese is just a simple meat sauce to serve with spaghetti. Yep, those of you who know how I feel about too many carbohydrates might be scoffing about now. Spaghetti? Yes, I say. If you serve it in the right portion. 1 cup cooked. That’s an amazingly SMALL order of spaghetti compared to what you get at an Italian chain restaurant. But there you have it.  ONE cup maximum.

What I do is concentrate on the sauce. I don’t limit myself on sauce. And by the time I eat the sauce off the top there’s plenty of spaghetti on the bottom and I’m no longer hungry. I have stopped that thing where I stir the sauce all into the spaghetti before I begin eating. I just put the spaghetti in the bottom of the bowl. Add the sauce on top. Put Parmesan cheese on top of that and begin to eat. It’s amazing how quickly I become full.  I hope you do too.

Servings: Serves 2 – 4

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of ground sirloin
• 3 Tbl of olive oil (divided)
• ½ cup of chopped red onion
• 3 cloves of minced garlic (Jar garlic can work for this one)
• 28 oz of crushed tomatoes
• 15 oz of tomato sauce
• 1 cup of red wine (or if you don’t cook with alcohol, use water)
• 2 tsp of Italian seasoning blend
• A dash of cayenne (optional)
• 1 cup of cooked spaghetti per person. Or if you want to be even lower carb you can serve this over cooked zucchini.
• Parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top

Instructions:

Put 1-1/2 Tbl of olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add the meat. Begin to break it up as it browns on medium. My feeling is the secret to a true Bolognese is to break the meat up really fine so there are no lumps. Cook the meat until no pink is left.

While this is happening you can put the other 1-1/2 Tbl of olive oil in a large sauce pan. Add the onion and cook it on medium until it begins to loosen. Add the garlic. Stir. Add the tomatoes, sauce, red wine, Italian seasoning, cayenne (if you want it), and the cooked meat. I like my spaghetti sauce to have just a teeny bit of zing. That’s why I add the cayenne.

Now, many an Italian grandmother will tell you this sauce has to cook for up to 10 hours on very low heat to develop the flavor.  I say humbug. I’m hungry. So I cook this for about 45 minutes on medium – medium-low and get the flavors to meld. Stir often. This is enough time to get the taste of spaghetti without having to suffer while you smell it all day waiting for the final satisfaction of getting to eat it.

Enjoy!

Cheers,