Pork Bolognese Revisited

 Missy Tippens

Because of illness in our family, I'm having a hard time focusing this week. So like Ruthy, I'm reposting an older blog recipe from 2011, one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it...

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Missy, here. And I have a fantastic recipe to share. Homey and rich and perfect for a cold day. (Of course, we won't talk about the fact it's going to be 70 degrees today!)

The way this meal started is that I got a deal at the grocery store. :) Ground pork for $1.69 a pound. I grabbed up several packages and then realized I'd never used ground pork before. I had to find a recipe!

The original recipe that I settled on is from the Martha Stewart website. (Click here to see the original.) You'll see as I go that I changed a few things, mainly because I didn't have exactly what I needed. So let's cook!

Pork Bolognese

Ingredients (from MarthaStewart.com)

• 3 slices bacon, finely chopped 
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, finely chopped
• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
• 2 pounds ground pork
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 1 can (28 ounces) tomato sauce
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• Cooked penne pasta

In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, cook bacon over medium heat. [I used pre-cooked bacon that I had on hand, so I just heated through and added a bit of olive oil]

Add onion, carrot, and celery [my family would go on strike if I used celery, so I left out] and cook until soft. Raise heat to medium-high and add pork. Cook until browned.

Stir in the tomato paste (it gets easier to mix as it warms).

Add wine (I didn't have white so used red, which turned out delicious). Cook until it's reduced. 

Add 1 cup milk (I didn't have whole milk so mixed skim with half & half) and let it simmer until reduced by half. Add tomato sauce, broth, bay leaf, thyme (I used dried), 2 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Then stir in 1/4 cup milk.

[I didn't have an hour. So I cut back to 1-1/2 cups chicken broth and cooked a half hour. It was a little thin but was very tasty anyway.]

Serve sauce over pasta (I used linguine), topped with Parmesan cheese.

For fun, I have a set of pasta dishes that I bought at the grocery store years ago.

I hope you enjoy!!

Do y'all eat as much pasta as we do around here?

Missy