Mom's Spaghetti Sauce

We ate spaghetti fairly often when I was a kid, and as far as I was concerned, spaghetti sauce came from a jar. If you wanted the "real thing," you got it at a restaurant. People didn't just make spaghetti sauce at home. Well, maybe if you came from an Italian family, but my family's not Italian. For whatever reason, one day she decided that she wanted to make homemade spaghetti sauce. I don't know where she got the recipe, but the day she made it for the first time, my life changed; there's life before homemade spaghetti sauce and life after it.

I really should have prefaced this by saying that there's absolutely nothing wrong with jars of spaghetti sauce. Most of the time when I make spaghetti, that's still how I make it because it's easy, already fairly tasty, and can be spiced up with minimal effort. I assume that this is why my mom always made it that way, too. However, have you ever had homemade spaghetti sauce??? It's probably one of the most delicious things on earth. Seriously. I could drink this stuff. I ate some that first time and thought "Why, mom, WHY haven't we been doing this all along?" Once I tried cooking it myself, I understood why--this sauce has to cook for 6-8 hours, so you can't really just throw it together whenever you want. I try to make it a couple times a year now, usually when we're going to invite people over because it's a lot of sauce for just Justin and I to eat. It does freeze well though, if you want to go that route. It starts with canned tomato sauce and tomato paste, so it's actually really easy, too. My mom always made this with giant meatballs, but I'm just posting the sauce right now so that you can savor in its awesomeness.


Ingredients

1/4 c olive oil
1 1/2 c diced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
36 oz tomato paste
32 oz tomato sauce
12 c water
1 c diced bell pepper
1 c fresh parsley, minced
3/4 c sugar
1 1/2 tbsp minced basil
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
16 oz mushrooms, sliced or diced


Directions

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large stock pot with a lid. Add the onion and garlic, and sauté 5-8 minutes. Add tomato paste, and stir well. Heat through, stirring frequently, and then add tomato sauce and water. Stir until well-blended. Add remaining ingredients except mushrooms, and reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook 6-8 hours, stirring occasionally. One hour before sauce is finished, add mushrooms (and meatballs, if desired) and allow to cook remaining hour.


Servings: 10