This is one of my favorite things my mom makes. I am really weird because I don’t really like meat sauce, but I like tomato sauce that has been cooked with beef. Yeah, I have issues. Anyway, this is really good for me and for meat lovers who may be eating with me because I can easily give someone else all the meat and get the tasty sauce and pasta for myself.

Unfortunately, because I don’t actually eat the meat I have a tendency to overcook it. You really don’t need to cook it this much before you put the sauce in. In fact, you probably should just brown it a bit. It will cook more later, and you don’t want it to be tough.

I like my pasta very saucey, but if you don’t you can just use half the amount of tomato paste and tomato sauce listed in the recipe.

This is awesome: You put a whole onion, some celery and bay leaves in the sauce while it cooks, then you take them out and throw them away. The flavor gets in there through magic or reverse osmosis or something.

Mmmm. When the sauce is almost ready, you start cooking the rigatoni. Cook the pasta until it’s close to done, then put it in the sauce (sans onion, celery and bay leaves) and the pasta will absorb the sauce while it finishes cooking.

Pay no attention to that “14 minutes” on the front of the box. That is a recipe for mushy, nasty noodles. I think I boiled mine for like six minutes and then cooked them in the sauce for a few more minutes.

Rigatoni with beef (serves 6ish)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic
1 package stew beef (chunks)
2 cans tomato paste
2 cans tomato sauce
water
1 onion
2 stalks celery
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
1 pound dry rigatoni
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Chop the garlic into small pieces. Add olive oil and garlic to a large pot over medium heat and cook just until fragrant, about one minute. Add the beef and brown on medium-low heat. Cook just until rare or medium rare.

Rinse the celery and tear the leaves off. Peel the skin off the onion.

Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, three or four tomato paste cans full of water (depending on how thick you want your sauce to be), onion, celery and bay leaves to the pot. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on low heat at least 30 minutes.

About 10 minutes before the sauce is ready, put a large pot of water on the stove to bring to a boil. Cook the rigatoni until not quite done, then drain.

Carefully fish the onion, celery and bay leaves out of the sauce and throw them away. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the pasta and parmasen cheese to the sauce and stir. Cook for 2-3 more minutes, until pasta is al dente.

Serve with more parmasen cheese on top and a big hunk of bread for mopping up the extra sauce.