I went out to eat a few weekends ago to a local Durango spot. The husband and I had a little date night. Gotta keep things romantic, ya know? It was probably my favorite meal/restaurant we’ve had in town yet! He started with a whiskey cocktail, me with sparkling rosé, and we kicked the night off right with some oysters. Gosh, I love those things. The first time I ever had one was during my first trip to New Orleans in April 2009. I was there with the college triathlon team for a half ironman. Ignore the fact that I had already graduated a few years ago. After making the 12-13 hour drive from Ohio we decided to immerse ourselves right into things and headed out to a restaurant with an oyster bar. Raw oyster in hand, nervous, I added some cocktail sauce just in case the flavor was, well, gross. Just as I took the oyster down, one of the guys said “I can’t eat oysters because they just look like big boogers.” Lovely. Surprisingly I kept it down and even went back for more.
Back to the date night meal. We then shared a sardine dish with fennel, tomato, and olive oil which was good. Not as good as the sardine dish from The Walrus and the Carpenter in Seattle. Can’t beat their grilled sardines with walnuts, parsley, and shallot. After that dish, I had high expectations for this one. Probably too high. We both really enjoyed our entrées: I had scallops with lemon aioli, swiss chard, and an herbed polenta cake. Dan had gnocchi bolognese. I’ve been thinking about bolognese since. It. was. so. good. Such a good dish that it is what inspired me to cook it at home. I’ve had bolognese countless times growing up with my 100% Italian family. When my mom makes bolognese at home, nobody complains. (Sorry we can’t say the same for beef stew.)
The sauce can be made ahead which is nice if you’re hosting or just have more time on the weekends to cook for the week. The sauce always seems to get better the next day anyway. Use whatever noodles you prefer: zucchini, sweet potato, butternut squash, regular pasta, polenta, whatever your little heart desires. Here I used sweet potatoes and have no complaints! So far, sweet potato spaghetti is the vegetable pasta alternative I’ve found that most resembles pasta. So my recipe below includes the sweet potato spaghetti. Don’t tell my Nana, she’s probably rolling over in her grave at sweet potato spaghetti. I can hear her now “that’s not Italian!” Eek. Maybe I’ll go say a Hail Mary or something.
One last thing. You’re probably looking at the photos of this dish going, “sweet potato pasta? Um, I thought sweet potatoes were orange.” You’re not crazy. So there’s actually more than one type of sweet potato. Grocery stores don’t always have both, but look or ask next time you’re there. I found the ones I used in a regular old grocery store, it wasn’t a fancy health food store.
The sweet potato variety we see most often is the orange-flesh sweet potato. The white-yellow-ish flesh sweet potatoes are slightly less sweet and less moist than the orange-fleshed ones. I find they hold up really well as “pasta”. To get into this even further, sweet potatoes and yams are not the same thing. According to thekitchn.com, sometimes the stores add to our confusion and label orange-flesh sweet potatoes as yams. If you’re interested in this more, you can read about it here, here and here.
- 3 slices bacon, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 rib celery, diced
- ½ an onion diced
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1½ teaspoons dried thyme
- 1 pound ground beef (or bison)
- 1 pound ground pork
- ½ cup tomato paste
- 1 cup red wine
- 2 fresh or dried bay leaves
- 4 cups low-sodium beef broth
- 2 pounds white-flesh sweet potatoes (about two medium-large potatoes)
- 1 tablespoon ghee
- parmesan cheese for serving (optional)
- Place the bacon into a large pot. Then turn the heat on to medium and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the bacon begins to brown.
- Add the carrot, celery, onion, garlic and thyme. Cook 5 minutes.
- Add the meat, breaking it up into small pieces with your spoon. Cook about 8 minutes or until meat cooked through.
- Add the tomato paste and cook one minute.
- Add the wine and bay leaves for another minute.
- Add the beef broth and season with salt and pepper.
- Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
- Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.
- Peel the sweet potatoes.
- Using a Spiralizer, cut potatoes into a thin spaghetti shape.
- In an electric skillet or large pan over medium heat, add ghee. Add sweet potato spaghetti and cook about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add about 1 cup bolognese sauce and cook 2 more minutes until the potato is tender.
- Serve and top with additional sauce and parmesan cheese.
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