This is the sauce on which I was raised. We had an enormous second freezer that was supposed to store huge amounts of frozed food; most of the time, it stored one large tub of this very good suace, and the odd bit of forgotten ginger root. I don’t think there is any meal I associate more with my childhood than this spaghetti sauce.  Here it is, in my mother’s words (I truly appreciate the final tip):

Once a long time ago you asked me to write up some of my recipes – here goes!

Spaghetti sauce:

Sauté onions, celery and carrots until soft.

Quantities – one large onion, three good sized carrots and four stalks of celery.  One odd trick – I always snapped the celery on two – which usually separates the toughest fibers running down the stalk – and then I remove them –

Next I add 1 ½ lbs of ground beef – I use ground sirloin or some other good cut – not too fatty.  This is an important step – I sauté the ground beef until it is really brown and smells well done.

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Next I add about three tablespoons of flour – and cook that stirring until the “raw flour” smell disappears, and it smells like bread – then add liquid.  It is important to time this correctly – the smell has to be that of cooked flour – or bread – and NOT of burnt flour –

The liquid; the best is my own chicken stock – however I do add water and some of the knorr swiss bouillon powder (or cubes) and it works well: about two cups –

Next the tomato part of the recipe: I add two full cans of tomato puree and a smaller can of chopped tomatoes.

Last but not least I add some herbs; this is variable according to what is available – but some oregano, some basil and sometimes some “herbs de Provence”.

I let the whole sauce simmer for some time – being careful that it is a low simmer and not so hot that it sticks to the bottom of the pan and burns.  Should this start to happen, I immediately grab another large saucepan and pour the sauce into the new saucepan leaving behind anything that has stuck to the original saucepan.