Mom's Spaghetti Sauce

Last week at the grocery store there was a sale on organic canned tomato products. I jumped on that deal and decided to make my mom's famous spaghetti sauce.

My Mom is a wonderful cook. From a young age she has instilled in me a love of cooking and being creative with food. She enjoys making people happy with food and has a way of remembering what people's likes and dislikes are. She remembers that I like to eat healthy and brought brown rice chips for me to eat on vacation. She also knows I don't eat pork and while everyone else was eating ham on easter she got me sushi :). Yeah, she is great! She will ask us what are favorite foods are so she can make them specially for us on our birthday. I have so many wonderful memories cooking and working with Mom in the kitchen, that is something I have missed greatly since moving away from home. Even at our church people will come to an event if they know my mom is cooking. You know that there is love in the food she makes and I hope that one day I can make people happy like that too :).

Now, onto the spaghetti sauce.

I normally make this on the stove, but this time I made it in a crockpot and it was so much easier! It literally only took me 15 min. to put together. The good thing about making so much is that you can use it for several meals. The only things I changed from my Mom's recipe are adding more onion and garlic, omitting the ground beef, and substituting honey for the sugar.

Mom's Spaghetti Sauce

1 onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

olive oil

1 28oz can crushed tomatoes

1 14oz can tomato sauce (I used no salt added)

2 6oz cans tomato paste

2 14oz can italian style petite diced tomatoes

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

1/8 tsp thyme

1 tsp red pepper flakes (I love spicy sauce so I put in 2 tsp)

1/2 tsp marjoram

2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 Tbls honey

Heat olive oil in saute pan. Add onion and garlic and cook until browned. Turn off heat and put onion and garlic into the crock pot. Add all additional ingredients and cook in crock pot on high 3-4 hours, low 6-8 hours. Or simmer at low heat on stove for 2 hours. Use immediately or store in refrigerator or freezer for later use.

I used that spaghetti sauce for many dinners last week. First off, I made gluten free pizza with a buckwheat crust. Then I made...

Meatball Sandwiches

Vegetarian Spinach Lasagna

Spaghetti sauce over buckwheat noodles

In total we used the contents of that crockpot in 13 meals (including leftovers). Pretty good if you ask me.