Hello people, hope you have all had a good week. Just as a heads up, planned recipes coming up over the next week or so include the bolognese pizza, blue cheese mushrooms and steak supper in a flash. I have just ordered my groceries online for next week and so for once have been organised enough to decide ahead of time which ones to attempt and make sure I have everything in!
On to Spaghetti Bolognese - again, as with the cottage pie, this is a meal I frequently make but not to this specific recipe. To be honest I do not actually have a 'formal' recipe for spaghetti bolognese I just ad lib it with whatever is to hand and my husband loves it. The recipe for this was interesting because it seemed an unusual method of cooking off the sauce before adding the quorn.
Basically the base sauce is as you would expect, carrot, onion and celery softened with garlic, tinned tomatoes, puree and a splash of red wine plus some stock and herbs. Oh and unusually a tablespoon of tomato ketchup as well. The sauce actually smelled amazing while cooking and then once it has simmered for a while you bung in the quorn mince at the end (I used frozen).
The texture of the sauce was exactly as you might expect and tasted good while I was cooking and testing the seasoning. I followed the recipe's suggestion of cooking the pasta once the mince had been added and the timings worked well.
Here is a picture of the served dish:
So, what did it taste like? Well, I have to say we were both a bit disappointed that the flavour was no where near as exciting or vivid as we were expecting. It was *nice* but just not anything more than that. I almost felt like I must have screwed up the seasoning but I think it has more to do with the fact that I generally always add a pinch of chilli flakes to my own version and had not done so here. I could not really taste the red wine either and if I made it again I might increase that from 100ml to 150ml to see if it made a difference.
I would not go so far as to say this was bland, it was perfectly edible but just did not particularly inspire me. My favourite thing about this is the method of cooking which I will adapt in to my own recipe for the future.
Points wise, each portion of this has 12 propoints which includes allowing for a 60g portion of pasta and half a tablespoon of grated parmesan. This is therefore a pretty good deal in terms of points. They are broken down fully as follows: pasta (6), quorn mince (2), oil (2), red wine (1) and grated parmesan (1).
We gave this a 6/10, it is nice enough but we prefer my version - although the method of cooking is interesting and gives me a new way to try. If I made it again I think I would tinker with the seasoning and quantities in this one, but if you like your food less spicy then this may well be ideal for you.
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