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| With greens-guilt free option for too much pasta |
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| Traditional serving |
This simple recipe was created by my husband’s grandma and
it was the very first meal I had occasion to try at her home. Adding raisins to
tomato pasta sauce can sound strange but in reality is very tasty kind of sweet
and sour combination. This sauce is also a proof that combining ingredients
that don’t match at first glance can end with quite spectacular effect.
Sauce Ingredients
500 g of ground lean beef
750 g of minced canned tomatoes
2 tbsp. of minced garlic
2/3 cup of raisins (seedless if possible)
½ cup of Italian herbs mixture (possible replacement with
combination of dried oregano, basil and thyme)
Salt, pepper
Ground Parmesan
You will also need large non-stick frying pan with lid
Place beef on preheated non-stick pan and stir frequently. I
never use any extra oil to cook. Usually fat melts out of meat, even if it is
lean flesh. It’s healthier and has fewer calories. Cook until starts to brown
and then add raisins, garlic and herbs. Cook for another 10 minutes, then add minced
tomatoes and cook on low heat covered with lid for another hour. Stir occasionally. Add salt and
pepper just before serving. Serve it with spaghetti pasta and top with grounded Parmesan.
Serving
To be honest when it comes to eating pasta I can’t help myself
with tucking into every possible portion. I just can stop eating it! No matter
what kind of sauce it comes with. Now I’m trying to replace it with some greens
or spaghetti squash to avoid too many calories and gluten. It’s not this same but still tastes good. Simply substitute
half of pasta with salad mix or use squash instead. Spaghetti squash is very
simple to cook. You just need to cut 1kg squash into half, remove seeds, cover
with kitchen foil and place to a preheated oven to 180 C for approximately 50
minutes . After pulling out the oven scrape squash flesh with a fork into
strings, and then serve it with pasta sauce. Kitchen foil protects flesh from
getting to dry.
How to buy perfect meat
Choosing the best ground meat isn’t easy. I would recommend spending
extra few minutes on reading labels carefully. Unfortunately most producers don’t
give info about fat percentage and very often on same shelf you can find
cheaper ‘ready to cook mixtures’. Price is tempting but that’s not a real meat!
It has some extra stuffing with little seasoning to make portion bigger and use
as less meat as possible. Buying regular ground meat isn’t good option either.
Usually it has very high percentage if fat and after placing meat into the pan
you realize that half of it melts and you have to chuck it out. Lean ground
meet is the best choice. It’s not so pricy if you consider content of pure meat.
