Lamb Meat Sauce - Disaster Averted!

I wanted to make chicken meatballs. That was the plan and I was excited about it. It did not happen. I went to the market and there was no organic chicken, so I decided to get ground chicken breasts.  I’d never used it before but I thought it would work the same as ground turkey.  As you can see, I was wrong:

Now I can’t tell you exactly what happened.  While I was making a red sauce, Mike was assisting and mid-mixing he looked up and said “Something isn’t right here.”  For a minute I tried to blame it on him – “You’re mixing too hard!!!!” What does that even mean? Nothing clearly.  I grabbed the chicken bowl (ground breast, spices and a egg) and tried to see it I could salvage it.  It was soon obvious that chicken meatballs weren’t happening, and it probably wasn’t Mike’s fault.

(Question – do you ever use ground chicken breast? Does it turn into a weird gloopy paste? If not how do you prevent that from happening?)

But I did manage to salvage it. I ended up cooking the chicken breast with a pound of ground lamb and then adding the cooked meat to the red sauce that was bubbling on the stove.  I finished the sauce with a tablespoon of butter (seriously butter makes everything, but especially meat sauce, better) and ate it over some spaghetti squash.  

This ended up being seriously delicious, and taught me a new cost saving strategy. I love the flavor of lamb. But ground lamb is more significantly more expensive than ground chicken.  This sauce ended up being lamby and rich tasting, but because I used half chicken half lamb it cost me way less than a sauce like this normally would. Yay!

 

Ingredients

1 small onion, diced

3-5 cloves of garlic, diced (i like it super garlicky)

1 tablespoon thyme

1/2 tablespoon red chili flakes (or more for spicy)

1 teaspoon oregano (some people like more, but im really sensitive to oregano)

4 sundried tomatoes, diced

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 splash sherry (or if you are being stricter, red wine vinegar)

1/2 tablespoon butter

1 lb ground chicken

1 lb ground lamb

2 tablespoons butter (optional, but seriously it makes it super duper extra delicious)

salt and pepper to taste

1) Sautee diced onion in a sauce pot over medium high heat, once they are translucent (about 3 minutes) add garlic, spices, tomato paste, and sun dried tomatoes, cook for an additional 2 minutes

2) Add crushed tomatoes and turn heat down to medium low

3) While tomato sauce is simmering season ground lamb and chicken with salt and pepper and brown in a sautee pan over medium high heat for approximately 10 minutes. Stir meat occasionally to ensure even browning.

4) Add meat and splash of sherry or vinegar to tomato sauce. Stir and cook for another 3-5 minutes until hot.

5) Taste and season with salt and pepper.

6) Right before serving add butter to sauce - this will make your sauce creamy and rich

7) Serve over spaghetti squash. Yum!!!