The Root Cause

Indrani’s Home Economics Class – Bolognaise Mince Sauce

Warts n all photo of Indrani’s Bolognaise Mince on the stove.

This week we share Indrani’s Home Economics Class – Bolognaise Mince Sauce. We did not video this class, unlike her French Toast Class because there were more ingredients and the whole process took much longer. Instead of video, I have included photos of the notes Indrani wrote in the recipe book she’s creating for herself. I love how it’s including importing notes I tell her along the way, plus the recipe and little pictures she draws for herself about the recipe at the end. It makes my heart melt.

You’ll see one her notes up the top of her recipe page in a star burst, it says:

The key is to ALWAYS get your ingredients out before cooking.

This lesson is important because if you find you’re missing something, you have the opportunity to work out a replacement ingredient to use. Most times, if you have a well stocked pantry (and access to google), you will be able to work out a replacement. If not, it gives you an opportunity you to choose a different recipe without wasting your ingredients.

As part of Indrani’s Home Economics Lessons, I am teaching her that cooking from scratch using real foods does not need to be difficult. I am showing her how you can cook what I call a base meal, then use this base meal to make many meals. As such, this recipe post also comes with an accompanying post of all the different ways you can use this bolognaise mince sauce recipe. Be sure to check out Indrani’s post – The Many Ways To Use Bolognaise Mince Sauce.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg organic beef mince (organic is best but go with what your budget allows)
  • 1 medium sized brown onion
  • 2 good sized cloves of garlic
  • 1 large carrot
  • 1 stick of celery
  • 2 mushrooms (reasonable size)
  • 1/4 green capsicum
  • 1/2 cup of diced pumpkin
  • 1 medium sized zucchini
  • 1/4 head broccoli
  • 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 750g jar passata
  • mixed italian herbs
  • 1 tblspn coconut or olive oil
  • 1/4 cup red wine or bone broth

If you want to make this recipe vegetarian, swap out the mince for 3 cans of beans and lentils.

The next lesson after getting all your ingredients together is to:

Cut and dice all your vegetables first before you start any cooking.

Method

  1. Cut up white food first – dice onion and garlic
  2. Cut celery into thin slices
  3. Cut carrots and zucchini into quarters, then dice the quarters into smaller pieces
  4. Slice capscicum thinly, then dice
  5. VERY thinly dice pumpkin
  6. Heat up pan, add coconut or olive oil
  7. Once pan is heated up, add veg and saute until onion is translucent
  8. Add in mince and break up with a wooden spoon, and brown
  9. Add in a big sprinkle of herbs
  10. Add in passata and stir thoroughly
  11. Add in canned tomatoes, stir through
  12. Add red wine or bone broth to the passata bottle. Put lid on and shake bottle, then pour this into the pan and stir
  13. Add in a sprinkle of herbs again and stir, then let simmer for 40-60 minutes
  14. Stir intermittently until done
  15. After 20 minutes, cut up broccoli into small florets, add to pan. Add in a pinch of golden caster sugar
  16. When it’s nice and thick, turn off and let it cool
  17. Voila!

Lessons

In this post Why Home Economics With Our Kids Is Important, I shared a whole range of lessons our kids learn from home economics. In addition to all of these lessons, specifically from this lesson, Indrani learnt the following:

  1. Preparing to cook, makes cooking easier. This includes getting all the ingredients out and cutting/dicing the vegetables
  2. About acidity and alkalinity of foods, and the importance of balancing out / neutralising the levels
  3. Tomatoes are acidic and by adding a little bit of sugar to a recipe with tomatoes helps balance out the acidity
  4. My base recipe for stir fries, is the same as the base recipe I use for bolognaise. This led into the discussion about how the base recipe is the foundation for many recipes, including stews and soups
  5. This bolognaise mince sauce can be used in so many ways – see Indrani’s post – The Many Ways To Use Bolognaise Mince Sauce.

You’ll also note on Indrani’s recipe page, she’s made a note about a brown smudge on the page – this is where she closed a mushroom in the book, so she wrote a note to remind herself “Pocket pressed mushroom”. I love how this recipe book is reminding her of so many stories.

Long and Healthy Live Our Kids

I am not going to lie, teaching your kids about ingredients and how to cook takes a lot more time than when you just do it yourself. But please try to think of it as the ultimate act of your love.

When you teach your kids home economics, your gifting them with knowledge which allows them to take charge of their own health when they leave the safety of your nest.

Parents world over spend much of their life worrying about their kids future. There are so many things which will be out of your control when they leave home. The one thing I know for certain is the time we’re spending with both our kids now is teaching them:

  • how to make better choices for their bodies
  • how to save money by buying quality produce
  • about keeping a well stocked pantry
  • cooking nourishing food for themselves every day in not much time.