Steal of the Week: Slow-Cooker Meat Sauce

I LOVE my slow-cooker/Crock-Pot as is probably apparent if you read this blog and I am always looking for meals to prepare using it. With family in the town over the weekend, being able to cook for several people is also an advantage.

Enter my trusty Cooking-Light magazine and it’s feature on slow-cooker recipes. In it, I saw a fantastic recipe for meat sauce and with my sister-in-law due to run a marathon the following day, a pasta dish would be welcome for the night before.

The original recipe is here. As usual, I made a few modifications based on what I had on hand and what flavors I knew the crowd would like. I substituted a pound of lean ground beef (93/7) for the ground sirloin and ground turkey for the hot Italian sausage. To make up for the loss of heat, I added an extra ½ teaspoon of red pepper flake while the meat was cooking. I used my food processor to process the carrots and onions and I also added celery as well. I also used regular canned tomatoes instead of no-salt added ones and consequently only used ½ tablespoon of kosher salt. One of those cans of tomatoes was the Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes with Roasted Garlic…everyone in the family is a huge garlic lover so I was liking the idea of the additional garlic flavor. Finally, I used whole wheat thin spaghetti to serve it over.

So, other than hubby noticing the olives and picking them out, the sauce was delicious (and the olives added nice texture and flavor and were not olive-tasting at all!). I think this one will be a must-make for potlucks and to take to people’s homes recipe…when I am not serving it at home for my family of course!