Bolognaise.

We had Bolognaise last night, with brown rice pasta, and it was wonderful. I used some mild Italian sausages, 5 in a pack so I used all 5, in the absence of ground pork. My corner convenience store didn't stretch that far, though it does carry a multitude of things! I would recommend lean ground pork instead of sausages if you are looking for ways to reduce the fat content of your meals. 

I started, as most dishes I cook do, with frying a cut up onion, a large onion. I skinned the sausages and added the meat to the onions and went back to peeling and cutting up carrots and slicing celery. I use a spatula to break up the meat as it cooks, lots of stabbing motions really loosen large chunks into small bits very well. Once the meat had all turned slightly grey I added 3 cut up carrots ( cut into small cubes ) and 3 sticks of celery finely sliced and tossed it all around then left it to continue cooking. I also added a couple tbsps of garlic, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and 3 bay leaves. The sausage meat had salt in it, if you are using sausage instead of ground pork maybe wait until the end to taste to see if it needs salt instead of adding it automatically as it cooks. I had a can of Hunt's Tomato sauce, which is very similar to crushed tomatoes in a can. Either will do. Or even some tomato paste and water. I actually made this a little more tomatoey than I would like but I couldn't face a small container of tomato sauce in the fridge begging to be used, so it all went into the dish! I then reduced the heat, covered it with a lid that was way to big but it did the trick, and let it cook for close to 2 hrs. You could always put it in a pot instead, with a lid, and let it simmer away in there if you don't have a cover for your pan. We have a large wok lid I used. You want to stir it from time to time to stop it sticking, but the longer it cooks the better. You cold technically eat this as soon as the meat was cooked and the veggies soft, but if you have the time to spare then do let it continue to simmer as it does make it better. Because the dish was at it's salt quota I served grated cheddar on it instead of parmesan as parmesan is very salty. 

I have made this dish in many, many different ways before. With ground beef, with half beef half pork, with mushrooms, jalapeno peppers, peppers, cream, wine, the list goes on. You can do whatever your produce situation allows, or whatever you feel like. Not being a fan of ground beef, or most beef other than good steak or prime rib roast, I definitely prefer the pork version. And I do think that less sauce is better so you can taste the carrots and celery more than overpowering tomato.