I decided to make some pasta since I was torn between making hot dogs (which would be cheaper but a mediocre option) and making fish tacos (but I was kind of tired of fish from eating it all week) so I came up with pasta since I hadn’t made pasta in a while. I also bought some local wine; I have to be honest, I know very little about wine but this wine for me is a winner. More about it later.
Ingredients
1 pack of whole wheat pasta (I used organic; you don’t have to use whole wheat…)
1 can of tomato sauce (use crushed italian tomatoes; organic)
1 can of tomato paste (organic)
fresh basil leaves (organic)
salt & pepper
dried basil leaves
Parmesan cheese (do not buy if it has milk protein concentrates; I used a grater for the cheese)
1 pound of organic lean ground meat
4 tomatoes
cooking oil
1 small green serrano pepper
1/4 onion
lettuce (I used leafy lettuce)
Instructions
1 take your 3 tomatoes and with a knife slice a cross on the top of the tomatoes that way it will become easier to peel later on.
2 boil a pan of water and when it’s boiling add your tomatoes and wait until the skin on them looks all crumpled up like a prune
3 take your tomatoes out (careful they’re hot!) and lay them to rest while they cool down.
4 on a stainless steel pan preheat on high, once it’s hot put your oil and let it heat for a couple of minutes
5 with my ground meat I made 6 meat balls and I seasoned my cutting board with salt pepper and some dried basil, roll your meatballs on the board to season them
6 put your meatballs on your pan and let them cook on one side for about 5 minutes, then flip them over with some tongs let them cook and leave them there for the moment
7 with the rest of your ground meat I seasoned the board again with salt, peeper and dried basil and rolled all the meat in there; then I added the meat to my pan (the meat balls are still there… Just leave them there.)
8 once on the pan make sure to split it apart (we don’t want a giant meat paddy) so just keep on splitting and splitting
9 once your meat is almost fully cooked with about 10 % of your meat looking pink; go ahead and add your tomato sauce
10 add your tomato paste
11 we’re going to cut your cooled tomatoes in half (make sure to peel the skin first; it’s quite easy since you boiled them already); use a strainer so you can squish the tomatoes over your pan so the juice goes in the sauce but not the seeds once the seeds are out of your tomato you can put the tomatoes into your sauce; do this with all your tomato pieces.
12 chop some onion, chop some parsley (TIP: use a clean cleaning cloth to put your parsley in it, then cover up like in a sack, and get it wet, then strain it as much as you can; this will make your parsley crisp and will make the green color on it pop :D) and chop a green serrano pepper (chop this one as little as you can; we want this to be as tiny as the seeds)
13 add your onion, parsley and serrano to the sauce; Add about 3 large Basil leaves
14 let the sauce get reduced I waited for about 2 hours but you can put it on high just make sure to keep stirring every once in a while to make sure it’s not sticking to the bottom of the pan
15 boil up some water in a large pot, add some salt; and cook your pasta according to the box (TIP: screw what the box says, cook it al dente which you need to constantly keep trying so you get it right)
16 once your pasta is done; lower the heat on your sauce (we don’t want to burn it) and strain the pasta with a pasta strainer let it cool for a bit
Preparation
take your lettuce and rip into smaller pieces, take your last tomato and slice it and add a few slices on top of the lettuce; use a grater and grate some of the parmesan cheese on top
put your pasta in your plate and add the sauce on top put desired amount of meatballs on top of the sauce 😀
grate as much parmesan cheese as you like 😀
as a final reward I went ahead and bought some nice local New Mexican wine called Chimayo (named after a small town here in New Mexico also called Chimayo) according to the wine it was made there, this wine is soaked in red chile, It might sound like a terrible idea but believe me when I say that the wine has a hidden after taste of chile in it; I think it was way perfect since my bolognese sause has a little spicy kick from the serrano. This wine is so good with spicy foods like the one I just made. It is refreshing, tastes good, and you can only want more and more. definitely if you’re in New Mexico you can’t miss out on it, best part it’s quite cheap. Look for it, Chimayo Red Chile Wine definitely “Treat Yo Self!”
Jouwels Kitchen 