Spaghetti with Meat Sauce
Author: 
Recipe type: Main
 
Ingredients
  • 1 pound ground beef (or use all ground turkey)
  • 1 pound ground turkey
  • 2 jars Chunky Ragu Mama's Special Garden Sauce
  • 2  14.5 ounce cans of Italian stewed tomatoes
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 large stalk of celery
  • ½ onion
  • ⅓ bunch of spinach
  • 1 small package button mushrooms (optional)
  • 2 fresh garlic cloves
  • 2 pinches of pre-minced garlic from the jar
  • ½ tablespoon brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons milk
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • ⅓ package of whole wheat spaghetti
  • ⅔ package of enriched wheat spaghetti
  • Pam cooking spray
  • Water
Instructions
  1. Use mini food processor to chop the onions, celery, carrots, and spinach into tiny little pieces.
  2. Chop the garlic into large pieces.
  3. In a large stock pot, heat a small amount of olive oil over medium heat. Add fresh garlic then all of the chopped veggies.  Sautee for about 5 - 7 minutes.  Remove veggies from pot and set aside.
  4. Before I brown the ground meats, I use a knife to chop and tenderize the meat. Brown the ground turkey (or beef) in the pot with some olive oil. Add salt and pepper and a pinch of minced garlic to start building layers of flavor. Drain the excess fat.  I use a colander to do this because I like to get rid of as much of the excess fat as possible.  Leave the turkey in the colander.
  5. Sautee the chopped onions, carrots, spinach, celery and garlic.
  6. Drain the canned stewed tomatoes.  Chop the bigger chunks of tomatoes into bite-sized pieces, then add these to the pot.
  7. Next, add 2 jars of Chunky Ragu Mama's Special Garden Sauce.  Add brown sugar (optional), bay leaves and milk.
  8. Bring the pot of sauce to a boil, them reduce to low and simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour.  When I make this sauce earlier in the day, I'll simmer it for up to 2½ hours.  This reduces the sauce and really deepens the flavor of the sauce.  Stir occasionally.
  9. As the sauce simmers, I skim off the excess oil that floats to the top of the sauce. This is necessary is using ground beef instead of ground turkey.
  10. Add salt and pepper to taste if necessary.
  11. In a second large pot, bring water to boil.  Salt the water.  Then I spray the water with some Pam cooking spray.  I don't use olive oil in the water because I found that Pam helps to keep the spaghetti noodles from sticking better than olive oil.
  12. Boil pasta for 8 to 10 minutes.  We like our pasta al dente.  Drain.
  13. Serve large bowls of spaghetti topped with meat sauce. Enjoy!
Recipe by Bebe Love Okazu at https://bebeloveokazu.com/2010/04/07/spaghetti-with-meat-sauce/