Since it is a long weekend I decided to make up a new batch of spaghetti sauce flavored with ground beef. John bought enough ground beef for us to have a hamburger meal plus at least four pasta dishes.

Starting my pasta sauce is seasoned ground beef browned in olive oil. After taking the beef out of the pan I saute the onions, dried oregano, garlic, chile flakes, and tomato paste and deglaze the pan with red wine. Then I add the ground beef back in along with a large can of San Marzano tomatoes, a regular sized can of tomato sauce and and one of petite chopped tomatoes and some fresh tomatoes that I have peeled. It all cooks for an hour or so and then it is ready to top our whole grain spaghetti.

A couple of hints: season everything along the way and use more oregano than you think you should. (I accidentally dumped too much in once and the sauce came out great!)

Meat sauce and some of its ingredients

After John put the al dente pasta in a colander I quickly grabbed the pasta pot and added a couple of cups worth of the spaghetti sauce. He put the drained spaghetti into this pot and  Icooked the sauce and the pasta together adding a bit of the reserved pasta water.

We cooked 8 ounces of spaghetti and it was enough for John, me, and our daughter for dinner. The sauce was really good plus I have 3 additional containers in the freezer for future dinners.

Whole grain spaghetti with a meaty tomato sauce