Mei absolutely LOVES spaghetti! We usually reserve these for bath nights since it tends to be a rather messy meal as well – but this is one dish where she will eat any and all meat and veggies are mixed in, along with a quarter pound of pasta – all by her little lonesome!
This is also a great meal to serve picky eaters since you can hide any manner of veggies in the meat sauce and feed your lovelies all sorts of vitamins and minerals that they won’t usually go for. If you have any non-meat-eaters in your family, you can also spring to blend the veggies into the sauce and adapt it to your families needs.
Basically, you can’t go wrong with this sauce! The last few times we have made this, we have frozen half the sauce since we tend to make too much and it warms up nicely for lunch, any day that you feel like having it. I mix the sauce with bits of leftover pasta and ravioli that we have made and frozen as well for a very filling meal for those days where you only want to put in minimal effort and come out with a great meal!
Ingredients:
- 1 lb of ground meat
- 1 medium onion, finely diced
- 1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
- 200 g or 1 C mushrooms, sliced
- 1 zucchini or courgette, finely diced
- any other veggies you like (ie. eggplant, bell pepper, etc)
- 1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce – we like to choose one that only has garlic as a seasoning so the veggies and seasonings we add in will stand out
- 3 TBS of Italian seasonings (either a ready-made blend or your favorites ie. garlic, rosemary, oregano, parsley, etc)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 TBS butter
- 1 lb pasta
- freshly grated parmesean cheese
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan then add the onion and carrots (if using) and saute until soft, tender and lightly colored. Add the rest of the veggies you are using and saute until tender and glistening. 
Add the ground meat, seasoning generously with salt, pepper and Italian seasonings. Brown the meat then add the jar of pasta sauce and simmer until the veggies and meat are cooked through. 
In the meantime, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta according to directions. 
Serve the pasta with a generous serving of sauce, sprinkling with freshly grated parmesean cheese.
