TEENY MCMUNN: MY RECIPE BOX

This caught my eye from Allrecipes.com so I opened up my email to see what all it contained. It was given a 4.5 star. The person who posted it said it was part of a wedding gift recipe collection given to her and stated, "It is rich, aromatic, flavorful, and makes a LOT."

It seemed like some good reasons to share. We are busy people and more often than not, I will open a jar of canned spaghetti sauce and add meat. I thought this would be a good one to make and freeze for those days that one doesn't have much time to put together a dinner. An added salad and bread is all one needs to complete this meal.

INGREDIENTS:

½ c. butter 2 tsp salt

3 Tbsp olive oil 2 tsp dried rosemary

1 large onion 1 ½ tsp dried oregano

3 cloves garlic, chopped ½ tsp ground black pepper

1 pound ground beef 76 fluid ounces water

1 pound mild sausage 1 29 oz can tomato puree

4 tsp Italian seasoning 3 ea 6 oz cans tomato paste

DIRECTIONS:

Heat butter and olive oil together with onion and garlic in a large pot over medium heat, cook and stir ground beef and sausage in the onion mixture until browned and crumbly, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir Italian seasoning, salt, rosemary, oregano, and black pepper into ground beef/sausage mixture. Simmer 20 minutes.

Pour water, tomato puree, and tomato paste into ground beef/sausage mixture, stirring occasionally over low heat until flavors have combined, at least 2 hours.

MY NOTES: If you trying to do your math on the 76 ounces of water, I believe 8 ounces = 1 cup, so that is 9.5 cups water. Yes, better get a large pan.

I see an opportunity to use fresh tomatoes and even zucchini. I would add mushrooms and another onion. I would use mild Italian sausage, but some may want more of a kick and could use the hot Italian sausage.

Freeze in quantities for your family, unless this is what would feed your family.

Enjoy