a country mouse makes spagbol in the oven

Tonight's tea was a rip roaring success. It is another Fay Ripley recipe (p.56) and is called Dan's bung-it-in-the-oven bolognese. I feel its name should be written in lights never mind bold. Little R and I ate every scrap and it was even easy enough for me to face cooking it after an afternoon of making jam and scrubbing the hob. That's a nutmeg balancing on top of the parmesan in the photo below, by the way.

This is a vegetarian version of Fay Ripley's recipe. I caved in and used Quorn mince after my brush with pork sausages the other day. I guess I'm just not ready yet to eat something dead minced up for my dinner. I also did not add 4 tablespoons of milk before serving as Fay suggested as it did not seem to me that this would make mince taste any nicer.

The recipe was the easiest thing I have made in a while. I'll give you my veggie version with the altered quantities and timings for Quorn.

You soften a carrot, a celery stick and an onion (finely chopped for disguise) in olive oil, then add 300g Quorn mince and stir around till the mince is coated in the mixture. Then add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes (my favourite San Marzanos again - 79p a tin not 75p as I mistakenly reported the last time I used them but still worth every penny), 2 tbsps tomato puree (Fay says 200g but that is an awful lot), 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and a great big pinch of grated nutmeg. Note, no garlic and no mushrooms. Transfer from big silver saucepan (like country mouse, it has worked hard today) into oven proof casserole dish with lid and bake at 160deg (fan) for 1 hour. Then prepare to scrub your casserole dish (see below).

Serve in bowls with spaghetti, basil and lots of grana padano parmesan (nothing but the best for country mouse's cooking).