Meaty Marinara and Crusty French Bread

My mom was asking for spaghetti, I couldn't resist! This is my great-aunt Ruth's recipe. It's really cool to be able to share a family recipe. It seems like I am always sharing other blogger's recipes, and yes, I still am in this post too! As I expand on my confidence in the kitchen, more and more of them will be my own :) I don't know about you, I am always just so nervous about wasting a bunch of ingredients. Plus, failure, ya know. Nobody likes that! Now that I have more time to cook and create for my family and friends, I have vowed to be more adventurous!

It's meaty, rich and simply delicious. I paired it with a new recipe I tried for french bread. I don't think I will eve buy french bread again - unless of course there is an emergency bread situation. I think the bread took a total of about 2 hours and 15 minutes to make start to finish!

Aunt Ruth's Marinara

1.5lbs of lean ground beef
1lb of Jimmy Dean Sage or Regular sausage
1 medium onion, chopped
3 29oz cans of tomato sauce
1 29oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 12oz can tomato paste
2 good-sized tbsp of minced garlic (or less, I love garlic)

To taste:
1-2 tbsp sugar
Basil
Ground Cumin
Thyme
Oregano
Salt

Brown the ground beef, sausage and onion together - drain well. I usually cook mine in the crockpot and it fills it up quite full initially. Combine the ground meat mixture, tomato sauce, paste and crushed tomatoes in your pan or crockpot. I would add your tomato sauce last in case your pot is smaller than mine. Add in the garlic and sugar. The rest of the seasonings are to taste because that's the way Aunt Ruth wrote it down! The amounts all depend on whether you are using fresh, dried of ground spices. Fresh gives you the best flavor but most of the time, dried is whats on hand and it's always delicious. Once the sauce is flavored to your liking, cook for several hours on low. Taste it again after a few hours and re-season as needed.

French Bread
1 1/2 T instant yeast
1/2 C very warm water
1 1/2 T sugar
2 C water
1 1/2 T oil
2 1/4 t salt
6 C flour

The instructions can be found on Autumn's blog "It's Always Autumn" by clicking here!


The only changes I have (and I dont even know if they were for the better!) are that I used half bread flour and one packet of instant yeast and one packet of active dry because that all I had and I was running low on AP flour!

That bread is amazing and it's so easy! It's crusty and delicious on the outside and chewy and soft on the inside. I have never had french bread this good. It pairs perfectly with Aunt Ruth's Marinara.