My Grandpas Spaghetti Sauce

Today I had grand plans of making a triple batch of meatballs to go with my Favorite spaghetti sauce recipe, but decided at the last minute that I am just going to use the meat as is in the sauce.

I will be cooking up 3 pounds of ground meat with about a half cup of dehydrated onions and about a quarter cup of dehydrated garlic and about an eighth of a cup of dehydrated Vegetables. Why all the dry veggies? No reason other than I am being lazy. Usually I chop an onion, a bulb of garlic and some bell pepper, celery, and zucchini to go in my sauce, but today I am not up to it, and thats where the convenience of dry comes in handy. Since I tend to boil rather than fry my meat, There will be plenty of water for them to rehydrate. As for the meat, today I am using 1 pound each of ground buffalo, beef, and italian sausage.

I will then rinse and drain the meat and veggies while I open cans, for normal people that is a relatively quick task but since I have not had good luck with electric can openers and I am not using home canned tomatoes (I ran out of the ones that are chopped, next year I am just doing diced or pureed) I have 4 quarts of tomatoes, a 15 ounce can of Tomato sauce and a 6 ounce can of tomato paste and a 4 ounce can of mushrooms (only one because its all I have left) to open. Yes, thats 7 cans and I can only stand for so long.
My grandpa's original recipe only calls for two quarts of tomatoes, but we find that its too thick with only two, you can used diced, chunked, whole (if you want to do a lot of mashing), crushed or Pureed, I use a combination of everything but whole.

As for seasoning, I guess this started back in the day when convenience foods were just getting started because it calls for two packets of spaghetti seasoning, I haven't found a comparable substitute that I like yet, so I stick with what Grandpa used. Genreally I pick up whatever store brand is closest to two for a dollar (Boy inflation stinks, its a good thing this makes a LOT)

I mix everything in my biggest stock pot, thanks to my mother in law, I finally have one big enough that I can make the recipe in ONE pan, lol.
Bring to a boil, simmer for 30 minutes, taste and adjust seasonings (I always add more garlic, basil, and what my spice jar calls Pizza seasoning, its similar to italian seasoning but more spicy) then simmer for about 3 hours on low heat. After 3 hours its time to put on your pasta water, when it comes to a boil and you boile your pasta til al dente the sauce is done.

After dinner, I package up the leftovers, we have A LOT of leftovers since this recipe was designed to feed a family of 8 two meals before the extra two quarts of tomatoes. I think I make this sauce about every two months or so, plus we use cans whenever I am really lazy (with premade meatballs in the crockpot Chris doesn't know the difference, the key is the LONG simmer time)

As for cost, I will calculate out three different cost factors.
Home canned tomatoes cost me 83 cents per quart (would be much cheaper if my tomatoes would come in before November and I got more than a quart off of my six plants, but I digress) $3.32 that way. I bought these ones on sale for $1 per quart, so thats $4, but normally I am more prepared and spend $2.33 on a number 10 can from Sams. When you average the three the tomatoes cost about $3.21 so thats the figure I am going to use.
The tomatoe sauce I get from Sams, but I never pay more than 66 cents for the two 8 ounce cans either so we will figure 66 cents there.
The Tomato paste, also from Sam's (can you tell I like to buy tomatoes products in bulk?) But that averages around 69 cents for a can in the regular stores here. Mushrooms are up to 59 cents per can now.

The meat, Ground beef I get for $1.79 per pound, you can use ground turkey for a lot less, by ground buffalo was free (thanks to MIL and FIL) and the sausage was $1.67, but for normalcy sake we will say I used three pounds of ground beef as thats how I normally do it. $5.37

Grand total for this HUGE pot of spaghetti sauce
$5.37
0.66
0.69
0.59
+3.21
________
$10.52
not too bad when you figure I will get about 6 meals out of this or more.