Cain's easy as fuck customizable spaghetti bolognese

[Cain]

Believe you are incapable of cooking that, if given the chance, you could in fact end up burning a glass of water if let loose in the kitchen?  Want to make nutritious and fairly tasty food, either for yourself or to impress others?

Then this is the meal for you.

Serves 4.  It freezes just fine, so if you want to stock up on extra food for lazy days, where anything more than pasta and microwaving seems like too much effort, this is also a good meal.

Ingredients:

500g of beef mince.  Preferably the good stuff, but budget accordingly.
1 onion.
2 celery stalks
Garlic.  Cloves, fresh from a jar or even powdered will work.
Oregano
Thyme
Chilli flakes
Oxo or similar beef stock cube
Tomato sauce
Tinned chopped tomatos
Worcestershire Sauce
Olive oil
A large cooking pan (I use a wok)
Time

Blend the onion and celery first. Throw them in with the olive oil and 1 teaspoon of garlic (obviously, alter for personal taste, but 1 tsp should suit most people) and leave until you can smell them cooking.

Next in goes the mince.  Keep the temperature low/medium, keep stirring until its nice and brown.

Add the tin of chopped tomatos.  Add two tablespoons of tomato sauce.  This will thicken the sauce and, in addition to the next ingredient, add all the salt you will ever need for flavour.

Add the oxo cube/beef stock cube.

Add the oregano and thyme.  I find just under a level tablespoon for both works well.

Add chilli flakes.  I find a heaped teaspoon works well, but it depends how much kick you like your meal to have.  You could also, of course, use actual chillis here, but with the UK being what it is, chili flakes more readily available (also cheaper and keep better).

Add the Worcestershire Sauce.  About a tablespoon should work, but of course, adjust for personal preferences.

Leave to cook on a low temperature for about an hour, stirring every 10 minutes or so.

Serve with delicious pasta and decent cheese on the top.  Parmesan, Mozzarella and Gruyere are my personal preferences.

This is what I cook when I really just cannot be bothered to do anything complicated.  It's easy, I usually have all of the above ingredients in abundance, requires little in the way of thought or effort and usually tastes decent.  Not amazing, but certainly nothing to complain about. 

I think I remembered everything on the ingredient front, but I may not have.  I'm so used to doing it on autopilot I don't even think about it consciously any more.

[LMNO]

Sounds like a solid dish.  I'm not sure about the celery, but maybe if I minced them finely enough.  At least you don't have carrots in there.

[Cain]

Yeah, I have them pretty fine myself.  It's pretty much to pad the dish out, you could probably just add more onion and get much the same effect.

And there is a circle of hell reserved for people who put carrots in spaghetti bolognese.