Today, was one of those day that I am so so THANKFUL for my crockpot!! I did remember to put my package of meat out this morning(put in the refrigerator) and had all my ingredients out to make spaghetti…but I didn’t have time to let it cook for 45 minutes on the stove. It literally took me about 15 minutes today to make the spaghetti meat sauce. Then, I let it SLOW COOK in my crockpot while I ran back and forth playing TAXI driver for my 4 kids. While I was browning my ground beef….I cooked up my pasta noodles….once I drained the pasta noodles…my meat sauce was done BROWNING and ALL I had to do was set on low for 4 hrs and go…I was done and out the house by 4:20 pm…to run to pick up my kids from after school activities. When we got home …dinner was DONE and we were able to sit down to a HOT MEAL by 6:30 pm. Usually, we would eat DINNER around 5:00 pm…but since Jan…we been pushing back our dinner time between 6:00-6:30 pm. I DON’T know about you ….but I find that once my kids got older… their after school activities seems to be push back to a later time. So, for me to accommodate them and still have OUR nightly FAMILY DINNERS together…I had to push our dinner time back to by at least 1 hour.
Spaghetti has to be one of my favorite meals to cook and EAT <3. My kids also LOVE spaghetti so I make it at least every other week. They prefer MEAT SAUCE compare to meatballs…I find that they like to eat meatball with SWEET HAWAIIAN BREAD and meat sauce with pasta. Also for the past couple of years….I have been making my sauce using strawberry jam or brown sugar as a sweetener for my sauce. If you haven’t tried strawberry jam…you need to give it a try…it is delicious!!
INGREDIENTS:
3 lb ground beef
1 large chopped onion
1 jar tomato basil marinara sauce
1 -14 oz can petite diced tomato, undrained
1-6oz can tomato paste
1-8oz can tomato sauce
4 bay leaf
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 cup strawberry jam or brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoon oil
GARNISH:
Grated parmesan cheese
Chopped fresh parlsey
DIRECTIONS:
Place the ground meat with 2 tablespoon of oil in the crockpot pan and turn to the BROWN setting and set the temp to 350 degree ( my crockpot has the brown setting) you can PURCHASE it HERE. Stir the meat with the wooden spoon, breaking the meat into smaller pieces. Stir in the onions and minced garlic. Once the meat is thoroughly cooked and the onions is translucent… add in the tomato cans. Stir well then add in all the seasoning. Give it another GOOD STIR!! Once everything is nicely incorporated..put the lid on the crockpot and SET to LOW tmp setting and SLOW COOK for 4 hrs. Garnish with parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.
***Cook pasta according to package
***SEASON to taste…I usually add a good amount of salt to my pasta water.
Browning the meat.
RIght before I put on the lid and set temp to LOW
