Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

It's that time of the week again!  Yesterday, Thomas and I decided that we wanted a big pot of spaghetti that we could eat on for a few days.  I was also having my grandma come over and then my mom came over too, so it was a good meal for a crowd.  I wanted to make the sauce from scratch, but I had a hard time finding exactly what I was looking for.  This recipe is adapted from several I saw on allrecipes.com.  Although spaghetti is fairly basic, I almost always have started with a base of Ragu (or one of the other brands).  This is one that starts from canned tomatoes, and it is very tasty!  I do want to make a marinara one day that starts from whole tomatoes...yum! 

Jennifer's Spaghetti Sauce

Ingredients

• 3 cans (29 oz.) tomato sauce (not the kind with all the pre-made sauce, but the one by the canned tomato products)
• 1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
• 1 package bulk pork sausage
• 1 to 2 packages of lean ground beef (depending on your preference for meat in your sauce)
• 1 large onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 package sliced and cleaned mushrooms (or about 2 cups sliced mushrooms)
• 4-6 cloves of garlic (depending on size and your preference)
• olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning blend (to taste if the prior doesn't seem like enough, I used about 1 teaspoon)
• 1 bay leaf

Directions

1. In a large skillet, brown beef and pork over medium heat until no longer pink; drain and set aside.
2. In the skillet, warm olive oil over medium heat and saute onions, peppers and garlic until tender. Remove and set aside.  Add a little more olive oil and add mushrooms.  Saute mushrooms until tender.  Remove and set aside.
3. In a crockpot (or large stock pot) combine browned meat and vegetables.  Add tomato sauce and tomato paste to mixture. Add seasonings.
4. Simmer sauce on high in crockpot (or low if using stovetop) for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally.  Alteratively, you can simmer the sauce on low in the crockpot for 8-10 hours while you sleep or go to work. 
5. Serve and enjoy!

This recipe makes A LOT!!!!  We made an entire box of noodles and used as much sauce as we wanted over the top (we served 4 last night and have leftovers), and we still had over half of the crockpot full of sauce.  This is a good thing for us though because you can freeze the sauce to use at a later date!  That is always a good thing in my opinion!  Once again, I forgot a picture!  I will try to get better about that!