Meat Sauce

 Either make your own tomato sauce or use your favorite brand of sauce. I make this with and without homemade sauce. It depends on what I have in the cabinet and what I got at the store. You can use an kind of meat your prefer. I use all different kinds. Some examples are sausage, meatballs, pork, steak, chicken. For this particular sauce I did make my own sauce.

I cannot tell you how much meat I used, but I approximate 1 to 2 pounds each. You use as much or as little as you want and what type of meat you prefer.

sweet Italian sausage cut into bite size pieces and remove the casing

chuck meat cut into bite size pieces.

meatballs (chicken works pretty well)

1 onion chopped

2 gloves garlic minced

1/2 green pepper chopped (optional, it depends on my mood if I add this)

fresh basil

fresh oregano

tomato sauce

grated Parmesan cheese

cooked rice

-On medium heat, brown the sausage and remove from the pot. Then brown the chuck meat and remove from the pot. Lastly brown the meatballs and remove. Browning the meatballs may be done the day before.

-After all your meat is browned add some olive oil if the pot looks dry, then add the onions and peppers. Cook until they begin to get some color and then add the garlic. Cook for 5 minutes and then add the sausage and chuck back to the pot (not the meatballs). Cook for 5 minutes and then add the sauce.

-Cook for 1 hour in the oven at 325.

-After an hour add the meatballs and cook for another 1 hour  to 1 1/2 hours in the oven at 325.

-Once cooked add the oregano and basil and serve over the white rice. Top with Parmesan cheese.

If you do use the dry herbs, I would add it when you return the meat back to the pot. Also, I find for a meat sauce I really like to use fatty pieces of meat. The longer they cook, the better the sauce is and the more tender the meat becomes.