To start the blog off, I’ll share my favourite bolognese sauce recipe with you:

Ingredients:

The sauce

2 jars of sun-dried tomatoes

2 medium-sized onions

500 g of tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

2 tins of puréed tomatoes

1 tbs agave syrup

300-500 ml of water

The tofu mince

2 tbs vegetable oil

400 g firm natural tofu

1 tbs dark soy sauce

Liquid smoke spray

Instructions:

Pour most of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes away. Put the jars to one side. Chop the onions roughly and cut the tomatoes in half and remove the “columella” (apparently that’s what the bit from the stalk in the tomato is called), then peel the garlic.

Get a large pan with high sides and put it on a medium heat. Pour in the sun-dried tomatoes from both jars (with the oil that is left). Add the tomatoes and onions and cook until the fresh tomatoes start to lose their shape a little. Then add the garlic using a garlic press. Leave it all to cook for another 10-15 minutes. Turn off the hob and let it cool down for about 15 minutes. Now use a hand blender and purée until the sauce has no more large bits in it.

Now add the two tins of puréed tomatoes and stir, then the water. I usually add half, taste, and then add more if it’s still too strong.

Now for my favourite part:

While you’re letting the sauce cook and waiting to purée it, you can crumble up the tofu. I do it with my hands. If you’ve ever made scrambled tofu, you’re doing the same thing. If you haven’t, just crumble up the tofu to make it look like minced meat. Put a large frying pan on the stove on high heat with a little vegetable oil. Add your tofu. This takes a lot longer than you’d expect. You want the tofu to have a chewy texture, for that to happen all of the liquid needs to evaporate first and then it has to get a little colour. This should take around 10-15 minutes. Keep moving the tofu around the frying pan so it doesn’t stick and doesn’t get too dark.

Turn the hob off and add the soy sauce and stir until the tofu is fairly evenly covered.

Now add the liquid smoke. I spray around 5-6 times, you might want more or less…

Once the sauce and mince are done you can add the tofu mince to the pan with the sauce and heat it all up again on a low to medium heat and boil your pasta of choice

So, that was it. The sauce (without the tofu mince) is also a great base for sausage and bean casserole. Once the sauce is done, I fry and chop up some sausages and add them along with a tin of white beans as well as a bay leaf and heat it all up again for 10-15 mins.