My Great-Aunt's recipe for Crock Pot 'ghetti sauce

An excitable and fast-talking woman, my Aunt Glenna had a habit of not saying the entire word or completing her sentences when she spoke.

It was a good thing that people who were around her all the time knew the secret language.

When she would ask, "Want 'ghetti?" while rushing to the kitchen around 9 a.m., we knew she was asking if we wanted spaghetti for dinner. She'd ask then because her special spaghetti sauce took a while to cook.

Although my grandmother cringed at the thought of anything cooked in a Crock Pot, Aunt Glenna's recipe was one she would fix for dinner when she wasn't in the mood to spend a day making her own from scratch.

In a lightly greased medium to large Crock Pot layer 1-2 pounds of browned (do not salt while cooking/drain any fat) ground chuck, one cup each of sweet white and red onion, three cloves of smashed/chopped garlic, one cup of coarsely chopped celery (including the leaves), one cup of sliced green and/or yellow peppers, one teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of dried oregano and black pepper, one bay leaf and a quarter teaspoon each of thyme and basil. Place lid on pot while you prepare the tomato sauce.

Mix in a bowl one 14-16 ounce can of stewed tomatoes, two six-ounce cans of tomato paste, a half can of beer (whole can if the crock is big enough), a quarter cup of brown sugar and cayenne pepper to taste.

Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables, close lid and let cook on medium heat for four hours before stirring. At six hours, stir again adding two cups of sliced mushrooms and let cook at least two more hours before serving over cooked pasta with a sprinkle of parmesan on top.

NOTE: Over the years I have added a can of drained black olives with the mushrooms at the six-hour cooking time.