Recipe - Turkey Bolognese

As a household, we are careful not to eat too much red meat, and since my Dad introduced us to Turkey Bolognese, it's become a staple of our diet!

Ingredients (To serve 4):

• 300g lean turkey mince
• 1 red onion 
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1/2 red chilli
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 carrot
• 1 handful of mushrooms
• 1 handful baby plum tomatoes
• Handful chopped basil leaves
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes 
• 1/2 glass of white wine
• 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
• 1 teaspoon Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Paprika
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 chicken stock cube & 1 beef stock cube
• 1 teaspoon marmite
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
• Splash chilli sauce (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Firstly, grab your turkey mince and whack it in a pan to cook off. This will release any extra fat that's in the meat, making it slightly healthier for you! 

Make sure to break your mince up well and keep it moving, so it doesn't start to burn! (I also tend to find if I don't take the time to break it up, the mince takes on the consistency of scrambled egg, and then it's one lump or two in the finished product)!

Whilst your mince is cooking off, chop up all your vegetables into small chunks/slices/however you like your bolognese to be! Obviously, if you have the time, you could do this beforehand and be ultra prepared - something that I never am.

Once your mince has cooked through, remove it from the heat and pop into a colander to drain any excess oils/water/fat from cooking. At this point I decided to swap pans as I could tell that I had too much veg to fit in the frying pan that I was using!

Pop a splash of oil (I used rapeseed oil) into the bottom of the pan and place on a medium heat before adding your onions, garlic and chilli. Leave these to soften for a couple of minutes before adding the rest of your vegetables, and dry fry for around 5 minutes. 

When the vegetables have started to soften, take a sip out of your glass of wine (just for testing purposes - obviously), and then pour the rest into the vegetable mix. Of course, if you would like to be even healthier, this can be done with water; however I go by the idea that most of the alcohol will cook off anyway! 

You want to leave this to simmer down until the wine has almost disappeared (it should resemble a thick syrup if you stir the vegetables at the bottom), and then start adding the rest of your remaining ingredients (I just crumble the stock cubes into the pan, I don't mix with water). When you have added these and given it a good stir, you should also add the turkey mince back into the pan. 

Now, as a rule, I leave it to simmer for 20 minutes before tasting it to give the flavours a chance to infuse. On this occassion, the garlic cloves that I had used were quite small, so I ended up adding a teaspoon of garlic powder, and also a little extra fresh basil (I do love fresh basil)! It would be ready now, however you can leave it to simmer for as long as needed - or you can save it and reheat it when needed (making sure it's piping hot - we don't want to make anyone poorly)! 

I served our bolognese with 75g each of wholewheat penne and that was plenty for us! It's left enough bolognese sauce for a two-person portion to go in the freezer as well! I'm pretty sure dinners like this always taste better after they've been in the freezer too!

What's your favourite recipe? What could be changed to make mine better?! Send me some pictures over on twitter or instagram if you recreate this recipe!

Instagram: cakeeatersjourneytohealthy
Twitter: @cakeeaternomore

Ciao for now! 

L x