7 of your 5 a day!

It can sometime be tricky to get the recommended 5 A Day into the family and especially the children but I have to say this pasta sauce fits the bill perfectly!
I start my sauce off with the obligatory finely chopped onion and garlic and as it starts to pick up a bit of colour I then add a pack of chopped bacon.

 

I have probably mentioned before about the bacon that I buy but I will reiterate.  If you are going to cook with bacon and cut it up you do not need to buy those lovely slices.  I buy packs of cooking bacon pieces from Morrison’s or Sainsbury’s and they cost around £1.00 for two or three times the amount of perfect bacon.  You don’t know what you will get inside the pack and it can be a mixture of smoked and non-smoked and different sized pieces.  A kind of bacon pot luck.  The pack I used for this meal had loads of small bits and mostly smoked but there was also a big and thick piece which I have popped into the freezer and will use to make a lovely white bean soup.

 

To my frying pan I added the bacon chopped up, two finely chopped courgettes, half an aubergine, peeled and finely chopped, two large grilled red peppers, a handful of sliced mushrooms, and seasoned to taste with salt&pepper, dried oregano, dried basil (you can use fresh of course but I didn’t have any to hand), tomato puree, smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce and about 2 Tablespoons of pesto. To all of this I added two tins of plum tomatoes and let it all simmer for about 30 minutes.

 

 

I served the sauce on spaghetti and a little grated cheese.

Mr R thought this was a really delicious meal and was making plans to take some for lunch the following day even before he finished his meal!