Easy and Homemade Meat Sauce

My kids have recently created this super fun game. They’re at this really enjoyable stage in childhood where they’re technically passed “toys” and instead choose shenanigans, physical activity or electronics to entertain themselves with almost zero exceptions. Gone are the days of 1 million teeny tiny Polly Pockets dotting the floor or Legos carefully hidden in the carpet by Satan himself just lying in wait to inflict torture on my foot. Now they’ve moved on, they’re older, and their games are a bit different.

For example, this new game, lovingly titled “Squishy Belly” is one for the annals of history. It’s that creative. 

This game is quite simple. The rules aren’t hard to follow nor are they complicated. No special game pieces or balls required. As long as my squishy belly is in the room, it’s GAME ON. Just my kids, chasing me around the house, trying to see whose fingers press deeper into my “squishy belly.” 

Let me tell you, it’s a total HOOT. 

Kids are so fun, aren’t they? Whether they are yours, birthed straight from your womb, or just random kids in your life. They are the great levelers. Feeling confident? Hang out with a kid. In all of their wonderful innocence, they are sure to knock that confidence right out of your system. They will humble you with a comment so off-hand at first you won’t even realize what they said. They will point out a flaw so obvious yet so taboo for anyone else to mention just as fast as they will pick their nose and eat it in public.

It’s true.

In college, I worked part-time at a daycare so I could pay for things like books and beer (sorry, Mom). In terms of my looks, this particular era was not a high point. I was slightly overweight thanks to, you know, the beer, I had terrible acne (probably also in part because of the beer) and I wore terrible terrible 90’s fashion.

It’s at this point in my story that I’m going to beg the youngsters of today to please, and I mean PLEASE, look in the mirror before you leave the house. Those throwback 1990 high-waisted jeans? They’re not cool. They’re MOM JEANS. And you’re 20. Please stop. Your forty-year old self is begging you. Trust me on this one.

Yet I digress… working at this daycare and sporting these wonderfully unattractive physical characteristics was an adventure in self-esteem preservation. Because children have NO FILTER. They will look you right in the face, touch a pimple and then innocently ask “what are those things all over your face?” They really will. Try being twenty and walking through that without a breakdown. I dare you.

And then when Connor was a baby before his life-changing cleft lip surgery, the amount of questions we received from children was astounding. Not bound by social norms, children would stare with outright curiosity, and ask the most interesting questions (when their parents would let them). They would ask “what happened to his face?” or, if they already knew what it was, they would ask if it hurt him or made him feel bad. 

And contrary to what you might think, I was always glad to answer any questions and was glad their parents let them ask. It is so much better to be approached than ignored. I promise you.

But here’s the thing about kids, whether they’re asking about cleft lips, pimples or pushing my squishy belly, they are almost never doing it with judgment. There is not a hidden agenda in their little stone-cold hearts. They’re not trying to break you or send you into the corner with your chardonnay and your tears. They’re just curious. That’s it. It just is what it is to them. My squishy belly is as much a loved part of me as my big mom hugs and my after-dinner dance parties. 

Kids do a whole lot less judging and whole lot more accepting. And maybe it’s time I take a page out of their book.

Because when my kids talk about my squishy belly or, yes, make a game out of it, they still love it. They still crawl up in my lap and love to cuddle me, squishy belly and all. They still think I’m beautiful and tell me so and they love me with the abandon that I swear only children have. 

But when I talk about my squishy belly. Well, I’m not so accepting. 

I’ve come to this place in my life, now that I’m rounding the corner to 41, that I can accept that I am not 25 anymore. I can accept that this body has birthed three babies, carried them on my hips and nurtured them through childhood. I can accept that I make food for a living and it’s kind of hard to stay a size zero while baking 50 batches of Apple Cider Cake just to get it perfect. Because someone’s got to taste test, y’all. And it’s gotta be me.

{cue the ‘NSync}

But accepting these facts and still loving my squishy belly is hard. A lot harder than I expected it to be. I didn’t realize how much pride I had wrapped up in the fact that I maintained “my figure” (spoken exactly like an eighty-year-old grandmother) throughout post-partum and those early motherhood years. I didn’t realize how much it mattered to me that my jeans were still a certain size or there was a certain number on the scale.

Until the numbers changed.

Then it hit me. And accepting this part of me has been harder than I thought. We read 1 million different posts celebrating a woman’s body and we’re supposed to be in this age of enlightenment and freedom from bondage to our scales, yet somehow I missed the memo that this means me, too. Accepting my body means accepting it when it’s not exactly where I want it just as much as when I’m feeling pretty okay about it.

I’m not saying this is going to be easy. There are lots of years of social norms and advertising damage done to this brain I’ve got to re-wire. But I promise you, right here and now that I’m going to try. I want to be like my kids, loving on my squishy parts just as much as my, well, firmer ones. I want to be accepting of the forty-year-old me in every form it takes, as long as it’s healthy. I want to refrain from judgment when I look in the mirror and don’t see my twenty-year-old self staring back at me. I’ve earned this squishy belly. I’ve earned these wrinkles. I’ve earned them with life and love and laughter. The stuff that matters. 

And gosh darnit, I’m going to play (and win) squishy belly every dang time my kids want to. And not just because it’s an actual workout with all of that running and chasing. But because I’m an adult and adults have a God-given right to defeat their children in games as long as they are physically able to do so. Those days are numbered, people, so I intend to soak up every last victory I can.

Even if the game is actually called “Squishy Belly.”

Easy Homemade Meat Sauce

It’s only fitting that the recipe I’m sharing today is Easy Homemade Meat Sauce. For one thing, almost every kid on the planet loves pasta in some shape or form. So you can’t go wrong with this one. But for another, this is the first recipe I ever created, the first thing I learned how to cook. 

TRUE STORY.

Yes, this is the first. I have always loved me some pasta. Like death row meal love. And a good solid meat sauce is my favorite. I’m not usually picky, I even can handle a jar of good old Ragu with some ground beef in a pinch. But my go-to is something a bit more time-intensive than that, though not by much. 

The trick with this one is to melt the tomato paste into the aromatics (that’s onion, garlic and spices, y’all) so that it almost burns to the pan, but not quite. It deepens the flavor. The wine, while technically optional, is highly recommended as paired with the tomato and the meat it gives a long-simmered flavor in a short simmer timeframe.

This is a heavy sauce, more fit for a tube pasta than a spaghetti and definitely worth the time. It’s one of my absolute favorites and we can thank twenty year old me for this recipe. 

Peace, love and acceptance,

Meg 

Easy Homemade Meat Sauce

October 25, 2019

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By: Meaghan Dawson

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup basil, thinly diced (or a handful of dried)
• 2 tablespoons fresh oregano (or a teaspoon of dried)
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 pound ground turkey (or ground beef)
• 1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
• 1/4 cup dry red wine (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Step 1 In a large pot, drizzle enough olive oil that the bottom of the pan is thinly coated and bring to medium-high heat.
• Step 2 Add onions and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Saute 3-4 minutes or until softened.
• Step 3 Add garlic and cook 30 seconds to 1 minute, stirring constantly so as not to burn.
• Step 4 Add in basil and oregano, stir, and then drop in tomato paste. Stir, pressing into the onion mixture until dark red color.
• Step 5 Add turkey season with salt and pepper and cook until browned, breaking up as you go.
• Step 6 Add crushed tomatoes, wine and sugar. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer.
• Step 7 Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary and then cook, on a simmer, for 20-30 minutes or until flavor has deepened and it’s reduced slightly.
• Step 8 This will be a thick sauce so it’s best paired with sturdy pasta, reserving some of the cooking water before draining to incorporate when adding sauce.
• Step 9 ENJOY!

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