Dinner : Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Last night for dinner we had spaghetti with meat sauce. I've been wanting it for a while for some unknown reason. I don't make it much because my boyfriend always claims he doesn't really like spaghetti. However, he ate three bowls worth last night!

I popped everything in the crock pot after browning the meat and it was so nice to smell it all day long, even if it did make me feel super hungry. The funny thing is we left to go out for a while and since the windows were open in the front of the house I could smell the sauce from the driveway when we came home.

Ingredients:
* Tomato Sauce Recipe
* 1-2 lbs of ground beef (I used ground sirloin, but anything would work, even a meatless crumble to make this vegetarian)
* 1 lb. pasta (we had angel hair of the semi-whole wheat "plus" variety)
* Hard parmesan for grating (optional)

Directions:
I forgot to thaw the ground beef, but I just threw it in the wok to brown it. While I got that going I set up the crock pot with the sauce recipe so that it would be warm when I put the browned beef in. Since I used the wok, and I don't put anything in the meat when I brown it, there was no liquid to drain off. However, you'll want to pour any excess liquid somewhere if you end up with some. After that I just put the browned beef into the crock pot, gave everything a good stir, make sure it was on low, put the lid on and walked away. So much less messy than leaving it to simmer on the stove! No matter what lid I use on the stove, I still end up with a mess. I didn't with the crock pot. I let the sauce simmer on low in the crock pot for probably 5 or 6 hours. There's no set time needed because everything is fully cooked once it goes in to the crock pot. Letting it cook so long simply makes the meat tender. I'm not a fan of ground meat, so I much prefer this sauce after it sits for as long as possible before eating.

All I had to do when we were ready to eat was boil the pasta. While that was boiling I grated some parmesan. I don't like it on mine, but everyone else in the house does.

My boyfriend also insists on putting a little bit of olive oil on the pasta before eating it, I don't do that to mine. I still think it's funny that he said he doesn't like spaghetti, but managed to eat three bowls, then tells me he remember HOW he likes spaghetti.