Big Batch Bolognese Sauce for Family Dinners

This meat sauce is delicious, nutritious and versatile. You can use it for Spaghetti Bolognese, or Lasagne; scooped into sweet potatoes and sprinkled with cheese; add beans and call it chili con carne; make a “burger salad” (iceberg or romaine lettuce, sliced raw onion, pickles, cheese and your fave burger sauce) or add some sturdy seasonal vegetables and eat it like a big chunky stew over rice? You could even crack some eggs into this pan with red peppers and paprika to create a Shakshuka situation. The options are almost literally endless, so be sure make double and freeze some.

Ingredients

• olive oil or butter

• 6 cloves of garlic, minced

• 3 onions, finely chopped

• 4 carrots, finely chopped

• 2 stalks of celery (optional), finely chopped

• 700g quality minced beef or game

• 4 tablespoons tomato paste

• 2 x 400g tins of quality peeled plum tomatoes

• 2 bay leaves

• Herbs & Spices: ground cumin, ground coriander, dried thyme / oregano, half a teaspoon each.

• 1/2 litre of bone broth, stock or water.

• Optional: Canned kidney beans, chickpeas,

Instructions:

Melt butter and oil in a large heavy saucepan or stock pot over moderate heat.

Add the onion, and cook over moderate heat for 3 – 4 minutes until onion is translucent. Stir in the carrots and celery - cook for 3 - 6 minutes more. Add the garlic and tomato paste, and stir it all together, cooking for another 2-4 minutes.

Add the ground meat and crumble the meat with a fork or potato masher. Let it brown a bit on one side (careful not to burn). Add your herbs and spices at this point and let them cook for a few minutes, stirring to avoid burning.

Stir in the canned tomato and sauce. Add in your broth, stock or water and stir it all together. Add your bay leaves.

Bring the sauce to a boil; then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for approximately 3 – 5 hours, stirring occasionally. Add water if necessary. Taste for seasoning and correct if needed.

The sauce will keep for several days in the refrigerator and freezes well for 6 months

Snacks for Kids! Nutrient-dense, Healthy, edible.

Yes there are the whole food options like fruit and popcorn and droewors and biltong (Southern Africa’s version of jerky) These are our staples and they’re fine. But if you look further, which we often attempt to do for parties or baking, all you find on-the-shelf is packaged treats with way too much added sugar while the chips and baked stuff contains pro-inflammatory trans-fats. Talk about a party pooper (the additives, not me).

The demand for non-harmful snacks is immense but the supply is low. I got you. Here is the start of a list that I will keep adding to. Send me stuff you find and I’ll grow and maintain this list for all of us. I have a good recipe for nutritional yeast popcorn (that’s it, that’s the “recipe”, nutritional yeast on popcorn but you blend the nutritional yeast to make it more powdery). More soon! My kids are asking for snacks, BRB.

1. Banana Sunflower Cookies

These are from The Green Spoon on Substack, they’re easy and taste a bit like a banana bread cookie with a hint of nutmeg. Bonus benefits of protein and iron thanks to the hemp and sunflower seeds.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup hulled hemp seeds

• 3/4 cup quick oats

• 1/2 cup ground sunflower seeds (pulse in a blender until sandy but not yet oily in texture)

• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

• 3 tablespoons of olive oil or melted coconut oil

• 1/4 raisins

• 1 very ripe banana, thoroughly mashed

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• pinch of fine sea salt

• 1/2 cup of untested shredded coconut

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Peel and mash the banana with a potato masher or fork until uniformly smooth.

3. Process the sunflower seeds in a processor until sandy in texture

4. Thoroughly combine all ingredients - except for the coconut - in a medium sized bowl.

5. The dough will be thick and tacky. Form balls about 1 inch diameter (a small golf / pingpong ball)

6. Roll in shredded coconut to coat and place on a baking sheet, evenly spaced, pressing down ever so lightly on each one to slightly flatten.

7. Bake for 15 minutes, until lightly golden.

2. Chocolate Chickpea Muffins

These are by Jane Houston (@nutritionbyjane) and I have not tried them yet but they seem really good (and simple enough to make, which adds brownie points in my books)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter

• 5 tbsp spelt flour (or cassava for gluten free)

• 400g tinned chickpeas

• 1/2 cup hazelnuts - ground

• 2 eggs

• 4 tbsp cacao

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup honey

  Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius and take out a blender or food processor.

• Blitz the whole hazelnuts until they are well ground. Add in the peanut butter, chickpeas, flour, cacao, eggs, baking powder, vanilla extract and honey. Blend until smooth.

• Spoon into muffin papers. Bake in the oven for roughly 25 minutes, until slightly gooey within. These taste best once they have cooled in the fridge.