Stamp of Approval Spaghetti Sauce

We had this today. It's homemade, but with canned tomatoes. I don't grow any in a garden or anything. But still they are just cut up tomatoes in a can, and I transform them into spaghetti sauce. So it's homemade sauce. We don't really like spaghetti as a pasta. So we will have this on another kind of pasta for supper. This says it make 12 servings (3 quarts). We are going to have pasta and sauce tonight for supper, then I'm going to freeze what's left.

Stamp of Approval Spaghetti Sauce
2 lbs ground beef
3/4 lb bulk italian sausage
4 medium onions, finely chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced
4 cans (14.5 oz each) diced tomatoes, undrained
4 cans (6 oz each) tomato paste
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar (why? I hear it lessens the tartness of the tomatoes or something. I added it, but I bet you could leave it out if you don't want it)
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp oil
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 tsp dried basil (or 2 tbsp fresh)
1 tsp dried oregano (or 1 tbsp fresh)
4 bay leaves
1 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp pepper
Hot cooked spaghetti (or other pasta)

In a Dutch oven, cook the beef, sausage, onions, and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to 5 quart slow cooker. Stir in all remaining ingredients except hot pasta. Cover and cook on low 8 hours or until bubbly. Discard bay leaves. Serve with pasta.

We had ours with garlic bread, too. Because that is Emma's specialty lately. We slice half a loaf of french bread down the middle, smear it with butter, then sprinkle with garlic powder and shredded parmesan. Emma likes to do it all, after I cut the bread. She apparently needs to be carefully monitored when sprinkling garlic powder...I think half the bottle was on the bread. I saw it and I was like "gasp." I picked up each half and dumped it over the sink and a ton of it fell off. A bunch stayed on, too. Then she put the cheese on. She calls it "stinky feet cheese." She is becoming quite the little chef. Back to the sauce: I think if you didn't have all these spices already this could be an expensive recipe. Although you can get spices very cheaply at the Natural Living Center. But then if you don't have a jar to keep them in already, you just have little baggies all through your cabinet. I have bought a spice there once, when I ran out of thyme. (hee hee, get it, ran out of TIME?) They have a minimum weight that you have to buy, which isn't much, but it took a whole lot more than I was expecting to meet that minimum. My thyme container is one of those short small ones, and I ended up having to buy enough to fill that twice in order to meet the minimum weight. Spices don't go bad so I guess it's fine. Not that I use thyme that much, and I'm certainly not going to search out recipes for it. Anyway the sauce was very thick...hard to dip the garlic bread in it to eat. Very hearty. It tasted like it had something missing. I still have half a jar of Ragu in my fridge, and I read it. It doesn't say HFCS, so that can't be what's missing. But something was. Even still we have a bunch of this to freeze. Enough for 4 meal's worth, by my estimation. I am keeping the recipe, because I like the idea of being homemade. Maybe it needs more sugar. Probably it does.