Meat Sauce for Pasta

This is a heartwarming sauce for a cold winters day. This recipe makes a large batch and is usually enough to feed 5 of us and have plenty to freeze for another day. It goes best with a larger pasta such as penne or rigatoni. When preparing this sauce I use my food processor to chop the carrots, celery, onion and garlic. It speeds up the prep work and also makes a nice fine mince of these ingredients.

Ingredients:

3 T olive oil
2 carrots finely chopped
2 stalks of celery finely chopped
1 onion diced
1 cloves of garlic minced
handful of parsley chopped
1 pound of ground beef
1 pound of ground pork
4 Italian sausage casings removed
1 to 2 cups white wine
1 small can of tomato paste
2 large cans of crushed tomato
Salt & Pepper & thyme

In a large pot heat the olive oil and add the carrots, celery, onion, garlic and parsley and saute until golden, about 10 minutes. Add the ground beef, ground pork and sausage and break up the meat as it cooks. Saute until browned. Add salt, pepper, thyme and wine and simmer til wine has evaporated. Add the tomato paste and tomato puree. Cover and let simmer over very low heat for approx 3 hours stirring now and then. If necessary add a glass of water.