Ingredients:

• Fresh basil
• Beef mince (depends on how many you’re serving, but I use about 100g per person. I also prefer the heart-smart, low-fat option, but it’s more expensive)
• Onion
• Olive oil
• Dry spaghetti (or make your own if you want to keep costs down)
• Garlic (optional)
• Chilli oil (optionalish)
• Brown sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Can of tinned tomatoes
• Tomato paste (about three tablespoons)
• Red wine (optional – I use a bin end wine so it’s very cheap!)
• Cream cheese (low fat, optional)

Splash a bit of oil into a pot on medium heat. While you wait for it to warm, cut your onion up into small cubes. (BTW, if your mother didn’t tell you… keep an onion in the fridge to stop it stinging your eyes!). Put the onion in the pot with the oil and if you feel like it, throw some crushed garlic in too. Stir the onion until it turns slightly translucent, then add the mince. Brown the mince lightly, being careful to separate it all to avoid “chunks” forming. Add the tinned tomatoes and paste. Feel free to beat up the tomatoes with your spatula a bit íf you bought whole ones. Add a generous splash of red wine (some for you, some for the pot is an acceptable measurement technique). Reduce to low-medium heat but keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom.

Fill another pot with water and bring it to the boil. Once boiling, add the chilli oil and about a teaspoon of salt. Put your spaghetti in the water, remembering to separate it with a spaghetti server or a fork. When your mince is mostly cooked through, add a very generous amount of roughly sliced basil, salt and pepper to taste and about two tablespoons of brown sugar. Once the spaghetti is cooked, drain it and return to the pot. Take a tablespoon or two of your sauce and stir it through the spaghetti. Serve the spaghetti onto plates in neat piles and top with the sauce. If you’ve chosen to use the cream cheese, apply a small dollop to the top of the stack. It sounds weird, but it works – the effect is similar to lasagne.

It’s worth noting that the chilli oil DOESN’T make this recipe hot. If you’re allergic or something, you can skip it – the sauce tastes great without it! It’ll just give it a mild tingle that you’ll soon realise bolognaise really misses!

Budget tips for this recipe: Again, this is a great recipe because in most cases you’ll have a lot of this in your pantry already. If you don’t want to buy chilli oil, but still want the taste, you can marinate some fresh cut chilli in olive oil (if you put the fresh chilli straight into the sauce it will be very hot). Alternatively, put chilli flakes into your water with olive oil and salt instead. You can substitute low fat beef mince for ‘regular’ beef mince in order to make the meal much cheaper, but remember not to use as much oil, as the fat in the meat will make up for it. Brown sugar is used here for flavour, but you can use white sugar instead if you already have it in your pantry. Again with the wine, I buy bin-end bottles, so they’re about $4 or $5 each and you can freeze the remainder to use next time, or drink it over dinner! I use my cooking wine for several weeks quite comfortably.

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