Flavorful Southern Cooking  Â
Italian HomeStyle Meat Sauce
We are the Leighs… the driving force behind the growing Live Well…Be Fabulous (LiWBF) community! We live in an L-shaped Italian style villa. Okay, it’s not really in Italy. We’re located North Carolina. However, the ranch house looks like a real villa, though. How did this happen? Because we remodeled it to look that way. We even gave the house a nickname… Bramasole Due! 😀
At first, our neighbors were like: “What Adams family has moved into this house?”. It was just me and my two boys, and we were determined to turn the most unattractive house on the block into a southern style Italian villa. With their Sicilian ancestry, the boys had a natural love of all things Italian. And regular readers of LiWBF know all about my Mediterranean obsession.
So mom and her then eight and nine-year-old sons got to work. We painted. Ripped out carpet. We laughed. Cried. And everything in between. In the end, we mastered many techniques (especially painting because there’s nothing like the feeling of waking up and discovering that your walls turned a bright orange instead of the rich terracotta color you hoped to see). Our Italian villa sprung to life and the neighbors who originally thought we’d lost our minds have now come to love and appreciate all the hard work we put into transforming our plot into a southern-Italian villa.
Running such a busy family meant fixing meals that weren’t labor intensive. Aka, we had no time for slaving in the kitchen all day. Enter Ragu, the spaghetti maker’s lean machine. What I love about Ragu is that their history is simmered in tradition. Translation, the sauce is awesomejuice and has stood the test of time for decades because of Ragu’s rich heritage and attention to the sauces they produce. Over time, we developed a meat sauce recipe that produced a flavorful bowl of spaghetti. We found this new recipe covered two aspects of our lives: a) it complimented our hectic lifestyle since the sauce was quick and easy to fix and b) merged the heritage of my sons’ family (southern Italy) with mine (southeast United States).
The meat sauces we made had all our family and friends talking and smiling and most importantly eating! So when Live Well… Be Fabulous had the chance to become an ambassador for the new Homestyle Ragu Pasta Sauce we jumped on the chance to show off the recipe we developed over the years. The great thing about this sauce is you don’t have to add much to it. Sure we threw in a few pinches of things here and there, but the sauce comes ready to eat and it is dee-licious!
We hope you enjoy our southern Italian style meat sauce just as much as we do! You can browse other flavors on the Ragu website. So go ahead and pick one so you can get started creating your own family tradition.
Southern and Italian Style Meat Sauce Recipe
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
Homestyle Ragu Pasta Sauce Thick & Hearty Mushroom
1lb Ground beef
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tsp Fresh Basil
1 tbsp pesto
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tsp Fresh Basil
1 tbsp pesto
1/4 cup olive oil
1 box linguine
Directions
1. Add 1/4 cup olive oil to a half gallon of water. Bring to boil.
2. Add 1 box of linguine, making sure you stir occasionally to keep the pasta from sticking together. Because of its thick texture, linguine makes an excellent compliment to our Homestyle Ragu meat sauce.
3. Brown 1 pound of ground beef. While cooking, add 1 tsp. of basil and finish browning the beef. Drain. Add 1 tablespoon of your choice of pesto. Stir. These two steps simply condition the meat and can be skipped altogether if you prefer.
4. Add 1 jar of Homestyle Ragu Pasta Sauce. We chose Thick & Hearty Mushroom but there are several versions you can choose from so be sure and take a peek at them before you leave. Stir.
5. Cover meat sauce and simmer on low heat for 10 minutes.
Are you good and hungry now? 😀 The great thing about the Homestyle Ragu Pasta Sauce is that it doesn’t need any modifications and will go smoothly in to your recipe.
What do you think of our meat sauce? Don’t forget to browse the other flavors of sauces on the Ragu homepage!
Drool worthy recipe Kasonndra! Mi piace tanto la pasta! 😉
And I loved reading your post too! Now you’ll have to post pictures of your Italian style house! Vogio vedere tutto!
Have an amazing weekend!
♥☻♥☻♥
Jeanne
http://fashionmusingsdiary.com
Awww thanks so much for your awesome support lovely. I promise to post pics as soon as this last phase of renovations are done. Hugs to you!
Love this! Thanks for sharing & Happy weekend♥
xx OHIAMIHT BLOG
You are most welcome Mai!
Your house is absolutely lovely and it has such Mediterranean/ Italian vibes 🙂 This pasta sounds so good too- you can’t beat spaghetti!
Rachel xx
http://www.thedailyluxe.net
And spaghetti is always super quick and easy to fix! Thanks for stopping by Rachel!
Thanks for this recipe! This dish looks delicious! Have a terrific Sunday KaSonndra!
http://www.kathrineeldridge.com
Thank you lovely lady!
Looks like a great kid friendly , weeknight dinner! Thanks for sharing on the What’s for Dinner Link up!
You are most welcome Helen! And thank you for being such a great host!
I’m very impressed how you and your sons are managed it to renovate the house and how you cook this meat sauce is absolutely similar like I cook such a sause for my family 🙂
xx from Bavaria/Germany, Rena
http://www.dressedwithsoul.com
Thanks Rena. If you do make the sauce then please let me know so I can stop by and drool over it. LoL
Hugs
KaSonndra
With my Italian ancestry (my grandparents names or on ellis island from Italy) I can understand the love of villas! I would love to live in Tuscany.
Hi Jenne! That’s so exciting to hear! I’m planning on relocating to Italy soon so I’ll be sure and keep everyone posted on progress! Hugs
It looks so delicious! Thanks for the recipe:)
jointyicroissanty
You’re welcome hun. 🙂
Ragu has so many great products. What a great campaign. Thanks for sharing with us all at Family Joy Blog Link Up Party!
You’re most welcome!
Sounds great! Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome lovelies!
That’s an incredible story! I can’t believe you guys did all that work by yourselves! You must be so proud of your home.
-M
Violet Roots || Instagram || Twitter
It took a long time and was a lot of work but so very worth it in the end. Thanks so much for stopping by!
Awesome story and what a testimony of working together to realize dreams!
As for the pasta – kid friendly and easy peasy to make! Awesome!
Thanks for sharing (and for linking up to the #SHINEbloghop).
Wishing you a lovely day.
xoxo
And thank you for being such an awesome host!!!
Definitely hungry. I’ve only recently “perfected” my own but I’m curious about the addition of pesto!
Sxx
http://www.daringcoco.com
Yum – that sounds great! Thank you for sharing with us at the #HomeMattersParty
I tried the mushroom home style sauce & loved it! Your recipe looks yummy!! Thanks for sharing at the #InspirationSpotlight party. Shared See you again soon.
Looks great! I love dressing up a bit of pasta sauce for those nights with little time for cooking! Plus, everyone loves it!
Thanks for bringing these to Throwback Thursday!
Mollie
I love a good pasta sauce. Ragu is so good! I love throwing in carrots, mushrooms, and spinach to sneak in some more veggies. Thanks for sharing!
~Andrea Tiffany~
aglimpseofglam.blogspot.com