Bolognaise

Serves 4-6 depending on appetite (leftover bolognaise minus the pasta freezes well)

Ingredients:

500g Mince
1 Onion
A few Garlic Cloves
3-4 Medium Sized Carrots
1 Beef Stock Cube
1 Tin Plum Tomatoes
2 Tin Tomato Puree (or 700-800grams)
1 Tin Tomato Paste
Oil (I use Coconut) or Olive
Handfuls of Fresh Basil, Flat leaf Parsley and Oreganum
Salt/Pepper
1 Bottle good quality Merlot

Heat oil
Gently fry onion/garlic (if you want a stronger garlic flavour add some more closer to the end of the cooking time)
Toss the mince in and brown that nicely - if you're using lean mince (90%beef/10%fat) you shouldn't need to drain any fat off, if your mince is swimming in oil/fat, drain it off and chuck it out - your thighs don't need it.
Use a big spoon/wooden spoon/egg lifter to bash the mince up so that it doesn't cook in big clumps
Once the mince has a nice brown colour, add your tomatoes and puree and paste. (you might need to add some water) and 1/2 - full glass of wine.
Drink a glass of wine
While this is on the go chop all your fresh herbs and toss that in along with the stock cube and season with salt and pepper.
Lastly, peel and grate the carrots, chuck that in the pot and give it a good stir.
Let it simmer on a low temperature for about 1-1.5 hrs, keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn, you'll need to add water as you go along.
Have the rest of the wine
The carrots will mostly cook away leaving you with a nice thick sauce.
If you want chunkier carrots, cut them Julienne
*you don't need to add sugar, the carrots have enough sugar in them
* If you don't want to drink the rest of the wine, put it in a ice tray to make wine ice cubes for when you cook with wine again

Calories
(per serving based on 5 serving recipe)
 +-330Cals
Pasta is about 200Cals per 50g uncooked.
If you're a small eater and watching your calorie intake 50g is enough, if like me you have a big appetite and have enough over of your daily calorie intake, 100g will do. :)

Notes:

The secret to a good bolognaise is letting it cook slowly at a low temperature. Reason being, you need the flavours to mix nicely. Taste a bit as it starts cooking and taste again when it's done, you'll clearly notice the difference. Especially for the fresh herbs, all that nice flavour needs to extract and mix with the other ingredients, it simply won't taste the same with dried herbs.

Wine - It must be a good quality wine, if the wine is shit, your bolognaise will taste just as bad

For the Italian Plum Tomatoes (I use the LaBelinda brand from fruit and veg)  The reason for plum tomatoes is that they're naturally sweeter and not as acidic as regular tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes is of course a better choice as it doesn't have the BPA that comes along with canned foods, but the plum variety is not always available and also takes longer to cook. If using fresh plum tomatoes, you may also need to add some extra tomato puree for extra flavour and colour. The type of tomato you use can either make or break your sauce. I've been through most of the brands, for colour, flavour and texture, LaBelinda does it for me. (I also use LaBelinda or other Italian import Puree)

Flat leaf parsley has a more desireable texture and has a stronger flavour than curly leaf parsley. For this reason, I only use curly leaf parsley for garnish

Choice of pasta brand - Thanks to an italian friend educating me about this a few years ago, I only use imported italian pasta. Why? You can simply cook and drain, then swish around a little olive so it doesn't stick together after cooking. Locally made pasta is left with way too much starch that you must rinse off - and then still reheat. This is my experience anyway, it just tastes nicer. I use Barilla, it's most commonly available. Fruit and Veg imported stock is also good.  For a gluten free variety, Glutagon rice based pasta is the way to go.


Don't forget to cook the pasta :)
 Here's a good link about how to cook pasta properly.
http://www.cookingindex.com/info/18/features/how-to-cook-pasta-properly.htm