The sauce is easy. You can use fresh tomatoes and make a base sauce, but it takes a bit longer. I used salt free canned plum tomatoes from Italy. Heat some oil in a pot large enough to hold all the ingredients. Add some fresh chopped garlic, fresh chopped red onion, a sprig of fresh rosemary, cook for a couple of minutes, add bay leaf, tomatoes, ground beef, and let simmer for an hour with the lid on.
In the meantime, either make fresh pasta, not hard to do, but can be time consuming, especially if you're not used to making it, particularly maccheroni al ferro. Here is a site which shows in pictures how it's done:
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://cuochella.blogspot.com/2009/12/maccheroni-al-ferro.html&ei=8qrqTqiOCofh0QGI5qDfCQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ7gEwAw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmaccheroni%2Bal%2Bferro%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DBTO%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26prmd%3Dimvnso
You can always buy it at the supermarket. If you can't find this exact pasta, choose another one. You are using a meat sauce, which has lots of texture, so most pastas will do. If you're using store bought pasta, start cooking it about 8 minutes before the sauce is done, or how ever long it will take to cook the pasta without overcooking it. Remember that pasta continues to absorb moisture once in the sauce, which makes it keep softening.
When the sauce is done, pick out the bay leaf and stem from rosemary, add drained pasta, and serve with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. This is perfect comfort food on a cold day.
Bon Appetit!
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