For anyone who is paying attention, Mike and are eating a lot of meat this week. What can I say, my inner carnivore went wild when I made the grocery list! And Fresh Direct is now offering grass fed, free range, organic lean ground meat. How could we say no to meat with such an outstanding pedigree? This recipe is roughly based off my Mom’s homemade spaghetti sauce with a little puttanesca flavor thrown in.

Because spaghetti sauce is such a personal expression, I’m going to give you rough guidelines and let you take it from there. Once you have the basics, the spaghetti world is open for the taking! Just remember, slow cooked sauce is going to taste better and leftover sauce is better yet. Give the flavors a chance to meld and they won’t lead you astray.

Start off with one or two medium onions, chopped in a large (I mean it) pan with a big glug of olive oil. Keep the heat low, you’re going to cook these onions for awhile. Sprinkle with some garlic salt and red pepper flakes. Stir every once in awhile but make sure you have something to keep you occupied, a good movie, book or conversation, this is going to take awhile.

For this stage, I actually added more onions to the almost melted onions from before. This gave me two layers of onion flavor, the sweet, carmelized flavor of the first group of onions and the sharper, soft crunch of the second batch of onions that won’t have cooked down as far. I also tossed in a few cloves of garlic, chopped into big chunks. Let this cook a bit and then pull the onions off and reserve in a separate bowl or plate. You’re going to cook your meat next over a high heat and that would burn your delicious onion work of art.Leave the garlic in the pan but pull it off to the side so it won’t burn.

We used really high quality ground beef, lean and grassfed, it’s as good for you as wild caught salmon. Full of nutrients and omega3s. And just look at it..mm, sexy! Mike even said it tasted so good that it was going to lure him back to beef. Now THAT is saying something!

Add your beef and chunk it up in the pan. The more surface area of the beef is exposed, the better the flavor will develop and the faster it will cook through. Also, keep in mind what consistency you want your sauce to be. I wanted to have small chunks of meat so I broke the meat up quite a bit after I took the above photo. If you want bigger chunks for a more meatball feel, leave the meat in larger sections but keep in mind it’ll take a bit longer to cook through. Notice the garlic on the side? Keep an eye on it, nobody likes burnt garlic!

Now that your meat is broken up and cooked through, mix in the reserved onions and side garlic. Next is a big decision. Bottled sauce? Yuck. Well…usually. You couuuld get a high quality sauce (Whole Foods has a good sauce) and then just mix in a can of plain tomato sauce or crushed tomatos. That will speed up the flavor development if you’re in a “hurry”. I’ve done this and got rave reviews but I like making my own from scratch. It’s more fun! So…it’s up to you. Also, if your meat is high in fat, you’ll have quite a bit of grease accumulated at this point, try and remove the excess with a spoon.I had almost half of a teacup full and ours was lean, so do it! If you leave it in, you’ll have greasy sauce and that’s kind of gross.

This time I used Muir Glen tomato sauce and La Squisita crushed tomatoes for my base. You can also add in a tablespoon or so of tomato paste which adds even more flavor but we were out. Mike is a bit squeamish about chunks of tomato so my sauce has evolved into a more smooth consistency. I used to chunk up canned whole tomatoes and that was delicious as well. Up to you!

Once you pour the tomatoes in, you’ll want to adjust your seasonings. This is where I added some puttanesca kick with more red pepper flakes, salted capers, chopped black mediterranean olives (not the kind you stick on your fingers), a bay leaf and a light dusting of italian seasoning. Another great addition is a cup of red wine but I didn’t have any handy. Now, keep this on an extremely low heat and let it simmer for at least an hour. Because you’re cooking it down for so long, make sure it starts out really “liquid-y”. Keep tasting it as you go along and you’ll come to appreciate the difference a long, slow cook time can make!

Finally serve mixed in or over some yummy noodles with a puff of grated parmesan on top and you’re set! Make sure you save some for leftovers, it’s guaranteed to make your coworkers drool.

Enjoy!