BologNO Sauce

Recipe: Bolognese Sauce
Source: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/ryans-bolognese-sauce/
Time: 1 hour (includes 30 minute cook time)
Ease: 4
Taste: 4
Leftover Value: 2 (I have some in the freezer, so we'll see what that's like when I brave thawing it and using it)
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain!

I hate when a recipe looks so wonderful....

and turns out to be crap.

I'm sorry to use such strong language here.  

But that's how I felt.

And I'm a girl who says what she feels.*

*It is one of my greatest downfalls.

Usually Pioneer Woman doesn't do me wrong, but this recipe was a major downer to a highly productive snow day stuck inside.  

The beginning step of frying carrots and onions together was pretty much my everyday clothing choice color combination, so I was a little partial to its beauty.

Then I wondered how on earth carrots equated to tomato sauce, but they had worked so well in my tomato soup, that I pushed all doubt aside and trusted them to work for bolognese sauce.*

*This was my first mistake.

Foolish, foolish girl.  I know.

My second mistake was that I trusted wine to make everything better.  

I thought the technique of making a 'well' for adding ingredients, while picturesque for my bazillion ridiculous shots, was simply a fancy way to add ingredients.  Pretty much any ingredient that was added needed to be added into a well.  Perhaps I will learn one day the importance of such a technique, if there even is one.

At the tomato point, I still believed in the dream that was the deliciousness of this recipe.  I still couldn't see how anything containing ground beef + wine + tomatoes could possibly go wrong.

I closed the lid to let the mixture simmer and crossed my fingers, hoping that the magic sauce fairy would transform what I was already sensing to be a down the drain recipe into something indescribably delicious.

It certainly wasn't indescribable.  It was, in a word, bland.  It was a lot of effort for a watery sauce which lacked seasoning and that 'wow!' factor that all sauces should hold.

Call A Flower Anyone?

Something about cauliflower in its purest form is detestable to me.

Sorry to any cauliflower lovers out there.  

Perhaps it is because it resembles broccoli, but tastes nothing like it and leaves a strange after taste in my mouth.  

Regardless, I have taken many routes to try to find cauliflower enjoyable.  Some have worked.  

#1 Riced Cauliflower.

To do this you have to get the head of cauliflower a little tender by microwaving it with a little water.  Then, using a fork you just tear away at the head of cauliflower breaking each little tree up into tiny rice sized pieces.  Then just cook as you would cook rice on the stove top, making sure not to overcook. 

#2 Garlic Mashed Cauliflower.

This was my favorite, however, the consistency didn't get quite as smooth as I wanted.  The cauliflower needs to be cooked thoroughly.  After it is cooked it then needs to be mashed, hence the name mashed cauliflower. I used a hand mixer, however, a potato masher might have done better.  I added butter and just a tiny sprinkle of milk.  The garlic was the best part.  About 1 tsp of minced garlic really soaks into the cauliflower and absorbs all the flavor.

I thought as my third addition in attempting to make cauliflower enjoyable I would try to grill cauliflower.  

I started with a perfectly sized head of cauliflower.

Chopped off its bottom.

Then chopped some tiny trees up.

And spread them out on my broiling pan.  Because yes, when I say "grill" I actually mean "broil" because our grill has had issues since last summer and even if it was working beautifully I don't know how to use it

Sorry, that was a really long sentence.

I drizzled a little olive oil all over.

And after about ten minutes, I decided it was done.

This all started because my hubby stressed that he wanted vegetables with dinner.  Not as if I never make vegetables with dinner, I just don't always remember to.

And apparently a good rule is to fill half your plate with vegetables.  That's hard to do when the vegetable of choice is cauliflower.  So it's a good thing I fried up some carrots and yellow squash too.

Now those are two vegetables that rock my world.