Spaghetti with Homemade Tomato Sauce

I know all of you know how to make spaghetti.  But until a few weeks ago when I tried the Tomato Sauce with Bacon & Onion , I had not tried to make my own spaghetti sauce.  I relied on my new cookbook as a starting point and went from there.  It was pretty easy!  But I have to say, I have to tweak a few things to make it to my liking...like does anyone know how to thicken tomato sauce??  Do I add flour or....?  This sauce was super easy and very clean tasting, but I think it could've used more a little more flavor - next time I will add some basil & oregano and hopefully figure out how to make it thicker!  But besides that, it was pretty and smelled delish!  The recipe I had was for simple tomato sauce, but added meat to mine bc that's just how we like it around here.

You'll need:

• olive oil
• about 2 lbs of ripe tomatoes
• 5 cloves of garlic
• about 1 lb of ground beef
• pepper
• sea salt
• garlic powder

I started by roughly chopping up my tomatoes using a serrated knife - so easy!!  My life has changed thanks to my new knives hahaha!  Sad.

Beautiful, glorious tomatoes.

And into the food processor they go.  I put in seeds and all bc I thought, "Why go through the trouble of seeding the tomatoes?  I eat them anyway on a regular basis."

I blended mine until they were at the consistency I wanted.  I was surprised that, although it's hard to tell in this picture, the tomatoes now took on a pink color, not the color of regular tomato sauce.  My nerdy cooking self thought this was interesting.

Then I poured a couple tbs of olive oil in my pan

And browned my meat - while seasoning it with salt, pepper, & garlic powder, of course!  Then I removed the meat from the pan and got out these guys...

5 cloves of garlic seems like a powerful punch, but it was just fine for this sauce.  I didn't think it was overpowering at all.  I chopped them, smushed them...

And returned him to the pan that I browned the meat in, with a little added olive oil

Then when the garlic started to sizzle, but not brown, I added the tomatoes back to the pan.

I let all that simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes

Then I added the meat back in the sauce and simmered for another 15 minutes or so - isn't it pretty?  I felt very Italian!

And if I had some garlic bread it would've been perfect!  But at least I had finely shredded parmesan & that went nicely with it.  Now once I figure out how to thicken it up, it will be perfecto!!