This is my super veg-packed Bolognese. The kids love it (Remi can out-eat Tom on a bowl), and with one clever pantry addition, it makes a delicious ragu for us adults too. I pack it full of all the good stuff – I hunt out an offally good mince (beef mince with the addition of heart/organs – you can’t taste the difference, but it packs an iron punch. Some good butchers do this, and I’ve seen it at markets. Otherwise, regular beef mince is perfectly fine too), lots of veggies (usually odd bits left in the fridge, this can be interchangeable with what you have), and bone broth.

Because I’m usually doing this with a toddler hanging off my leg, I take all the shortcuts I can to make this achievable. I recently got sent a food processor (thanks Breville!) and it has been a lifesaver. While I usually prefer to chop everything by hand (blitzing impacts the water structure in veg), I pick my battles here. Easy and low energy takes the cake more often than not these days. I blitz the onion and garlic, then tip it into a hot pan with oil. Next, I blitz the celery and add that to the pan too. Doing it in stages stops it from turning into mush. Then I swap the parts to grate and grate the carrot. That then joins the onion, garlic, and celery in the pan for our sofrito base. I’ll then grate the remaining veg – sweet potato or pumpkin, zucchini, and if I have them, I’ll blitz mushrooms too. Of course you can do this all with a knife and box grater.

Then it’s about adding everything to the pan and letting it simmer away – the key here is 3 hours - that's how the flavours develop. But it’s hands-off, and you can whack it in the oven, so you don’t need to think. I then smugly pack up portions into snap lock bags and put them in the freezer.