Mid-Week Meat Sauce

 

It's the middle of the week.  You're kinda tired and crabby.  You want comfort food.  Sure, you can grab a jar of that sauce in the pantry.  Or...OR...you can make your own.  Like this:

 

Total prep time 15 minutes/Total cook time 30 minutes

1 ground beef

1 pound mild sausage

about 2/3 of an onion, because it was already in the fridge that way

fresh garlic

fresh basil

home-made seasoning mix.  

I love the blend from Our Best Bites (I double the recipe and pre-make this stuff and just have it in the door of the fridge)(I put it on fish when I'm doing a quick sautee in butter for lunch during the week.)

 

You'll want petite diced tomatoes, and tomato sauce.  Red Gold is an Indiana company, and once you've had it, it'll be difficult to go back to other brands.

 

Gotta have pasta.  I THOUGHT I was having spaghetti.  This is what was in the pantry.

Dice up your onions, garlic, and basil.  

 

I'm using a small dutch oven (or stew pot?  not really sure).  This is probably about 2 Tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil.  (You can't make a living nativity scene in central Indiana because nobody can find three wise men or a virgin).

I want to soften and carmelize the onions and garlic.  I did a couple cranks of pepper from my pepper grinder.  I'll add the basil later.  I don't want it to cook too much.

Once I've got the onions and garlic the way I want, I'll add the meat and brown it.

Unless you're buying super-lean ground beef and sausage, you'll probably want to drain the grease before you continue.

I added 2 Tablespoons of that seasoning blend I mentioned above, and about half the basil.  Stirred that in, brought it back to just a bit of a bubble.

And plated, with a little more basil on top 'cause I'm fancy like that.