You Gotta Have Faith! - Slow Cooker Pasta Sauce

Who doesn’t love to come home at the end of a long day, walk through the door, and be greeted by the fantastic aroma of a slow cooked meal ready and waiting?

One of my family’s favorite meals is spaghetti with sauce. The sauce I make in my slow cooker is so easy and delicious. When we get home the whole house smells like a fabulous restaurant. All I have to do is boil a pot of pasta and we are ready to sit down to a delicious meal. The sauce is deep red and thick enough to hold to the noodles perfectly. It taste as though a lot of time and effort went into the preparation, but in reality all it takes is a few minutes in the morning and the slow cooker does the rest!

It’s easy to think the “best” things in life are hard to get, or too expensive, or require too much effort. But as this recipe illustrates, nothing could be further from the truth.

Anyone who has used a slow cooker knows when you place all the “raw” ingredients inside the pot in the morning it doesn’t look or smell very appetizing. But you have to have faith! Just throw it all in and intend to have a great meal later that evening. All it takes is time and the work is done for us.

So it goes with getting the best out of life. It only takes the power of our thoughts to conjure up what we intend to have and experience. If we have faith in the outcome the rest will magically fall into place. Remember the old saying – A watched pot never boils. So go ahead – dream big, but then let go, have faith, and let it happen.

Slow Cooker Pasta Sauce Recipe – By Diane Abraham

2(two) 28oz cans of peeled and crushed tomatoes

3 Tbl olive oil

½ large purple onion (chopped)

5-6 mini sweet peppers (stems and seeds removed then chopped)

1 4oz can tomato paste

1 Tbl Italian spice (dried)

1-2 cloves of garlic chopped

¼ cup red wine (like Pinot Noir)

1-2 tsp salt (to taste)

• Put all ingredients in crock pot (* if you have a bit more time try the alternate method below)

• Cook approx. 4-6 hours on high or approx. 8 hrs on low (sauce will be deep red when done)

• Cook your favorite pasta according to package directions

• Top with the sauce and enjoy!

*If you have a little more time in the morning make what I call the sauce “base” then put that in the cooker with the other ingredients.

Sauce base (optional method)

Heat the olive oil on med. high heat in a skillet. Sauté the onions and peppers until soft and slightly browned. Turn heat to low and add the Italian seasonings and stir a bit to release aroma. Then add the garlic and tomato paste and continue to cook on low heat until thick and sticking to the skillet a bit (just a few minutes). Finally deglaze with the red wine (it will look like the picture above) and add the entire mixture to the remaining ingredients in the cooker.