15 Minute Bolognese Style Pasta Dinner

Photo Credit : http://www.dbgg1979.com/

I have been making this easy sauce as a quick weeknight meal for a few years now, and it never fails to please, and it really can be made in about 15 minutes.  My family has unabashedly used supermarket marinara sauce as meat sauce base for pasta since I was a child, it's cheap, quick, easy and tasty.  We all know the old aphorism; "Good, Fast,Cheap - Pick any Two" and it applies to just as aptly to cooking as it does to software development, fast and cheap food is seldom very good.  And thus it was with my childhood meat sauce, if you wanted it to be good, you would have to extensively doctor up the jarred sauce, which of course takes time.  The problem with most supermarket marinara sauce is it's cloying sweetness, the taste is almost instantly identifiable and they all taste the same, adding ground beef adds flavor, but does nothing for the sweetness.  So, if you want good and fast, cheap needs to go, the good news is that pasta and sauce is so cheap per serving, that even doubling the price only raises the cost to the level of a typical dinner.  Anyway, if you can stomach paying $10.00 for a jar of pasta sauce at Whole Foods read on.  Without further fanfare the recipe (serves 4-5 generously) 1 32oz. Jar  - Rao's Marinara Sauce (it's worth it I swear) 1/2 lb. - Ground Beef 1/2 lb. - Sweet Italian Pork Sausage (casing removed) 1 lb. Pasta (I like fresh ravioli) Actual Italian Parmesan Cheese from the refrigerated section Heavy Cream or Half and Half (cream tastes best) Steps: 1. Pan Fry Beef and Sausage breaking it up into small bits with the spatula. 2. When the meat is finished if it is super greasy drain off most of the fat. 3. Add the Rao's sauce right to the hot pan and scrape off any yummy bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. 4. Decrease heat to med low and simmer till the pasta is ready. 5. Add 1/2 cup (more or less) of Parm to sauce 6. Add a bit of the cream to taste. in the neighbor hood of 1/4 cup or so. 7. Serve with Pasta Woot ! Done, hope you enjoy it.

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