Despite Ancestry.com stating that I am 8% Italian, I really don’t get as excited over red sauce as some other people. While my mother’s red sauce recipe that I use makes a really good “gravy” that is better than I have had elsewhere, I can usually take it or leave it. Even though I make sauce fairly often, and only ever make my own, I am usually more into the meatballs, lasagne or chicken cutlet parmesan that accompanies the sauce. I tend to be more of a cream or cheese sauce kind of girl.
Even if you eliminated the 1/4 cup of heavy cream called for in this recipe, I’m sure it would still be amazing. For me, however, I add more than the required amount, probably about 1/2 cup. I have never measured how much I add, and I tend to be heavy handed with cream so gauge it on your own personal taste. You will probably notice Ina Garten’s picture looks a little more red than mine. I also have only ever made this with ground turkey, and to me you really don’t notice the difference.
https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/weeknight-bolognese-1
As with making my own red sauce, if a recipe calls for red wine then it automatically means you have to pour a glass for yourself. Last night while making the Bolognese my husband only saw the measuring cup of wine and asked “have you started drinking out of measuring cups now?” Of course not! Unless there weren’t any glasses, silly! Thankfully I have plenty of wine glasses and haven’t had to resort to Pyrex yet.
While I never cut the amount of red wine I pour in my glass, I do cut the amount the recipe calls for. The first time I made this Bolognese I followed the recipe word for word, but my family didn’t like the overpowering wine taste. Instead of the 1 1/4 cups the recipe calls for, I use 3/4 cup total. While I would love to be able to say I have fresh herbs in my kitchen at all times, I don’t. For those of you that are like me, I usually just reach into my spice cabinet when a recipe calls for basil. I just use about 1 tbsp. of dried basil, maybe not even, instead of the fresh basil noted.
It is an absolutely delicious recipe! While the Weeknight Bolognese isn’t a very difficult recipe, there are a number of steps. Make sure you are only heavy handed pouring the cream and not the wine or you might find this recipe hard to follow 😉
