First Post: Bolognese!

Hi all!

Sawsheezle invited me to start posting here, so I guess you're all stuck with it now. Today, we're making bolognese. Prep time: 3.5 hours.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 white onion
• 1.5-2 pounds ground beef (or pork, be creative)
• 2 oz tomato paste (half a can)
• 2 cups red wine
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup milk
• 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
• parmesan for garnish 

• Herbs to taste. I recommend some combination of basil, rosemary, sage, and bay leaves.

• Pasta of your choice. I'll be using fettuccine.

The first (and most important) step of any cooking adventure is a solid drink. You're not going to spend the next three hours sober are you?

Tonight, I'll be drinking a variation on the classic dark and stormy. Rather than lime, I add a few dashes of bitters. I'm using Zafra Master Reserve rum which is aged in bourbon barrels. The combination of flavors imparted by the aging of the rum and the addition of bitters makes for a sharper, more biting cocktail. I much prefer it to the traditional incarnation.

Random unrelated bit of trivia, the glass pictured is the exact make/model used by Harrison Ford's character in Blade Runner. There's a guy online that imports and sells them. They were gift a long time ago, and I still think they're awesome!

Anyways, on to the recipe! You're going to want to start by getting out and washing all of the veggies and the garlic. Chop them finely and toss them in a bowl for later.

Heat up the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Toss in the veggies. You're going to cook these until they're nice and soft. 10-15 minutes should do it. More won't hurt. At the same time, you'll want to start browning whatever meat you've decided on. Tonight, I'm using ground beef.

At the last minute, I realized I had a few slices of prosciutto leftover, so I decided to toss that in too. After all, when has prosciutto ever made something worse?

Once the veggies are soft and the meat is browned, you'll want to drain the meat and then combine the meat, veggies and the tomato paste in your pot and stir until the paste covers everything evenly.

Go ahead and add the chicken stock, milk, red wine and crushed tomatoes and then bring the mixture to a boil.

After your sauce reaches a boil, reduce the heat to a low simmer. At this point, add whatever herbs you'd like. Better make yourself another drink because now is when the waiting begins. You're going to simmer uncovered for 2.5-3 hours. Basically, you want to reduce the sauce down to something nice and thick. How long you simmer is personal preference, but in my opinion: the longer the better.

Two hours in, you can see how much it has reduced down.

When your sauce is about 20-30 minutes from done, get some water boiling and cook your pasta. (I'm omitting specifics as you can use any type of pasta you'd like).

Allow the pasta to rest for a couple of minutes after straining, then plate the pasta and add your bolognese. Garnish with parmesan and fresh basil.

Enjoy!

Whelp. That about does it for my first post here, hopefully there are more to come. I hear tell of investment and home improvement discussion in addition to cooking, so I look forward to that.