Italian Sauce

6 medium carrots, shredded
3 large onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup cooking oil
6 28-oz cans tomatoes
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. dried basil, crushed
2 tsp. dried oregano, crushed
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 bay leaves

In a 8-10 quart Dutch oven, cook carrots, onion, and garlic in hot cooking oil til onion is tender and not brown. Add undrained tomatoes, sugar, salt, basil, oregano, pepper and bay leaves. Boil gently, uncovered for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Cool Italian Sauce. Remove bay leaves and disgard. Place about 1/4 of the mixture at a time in blender container and blend til smooth. Freezes or cans well.

My notes: I have used a combination of stewed tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, crushed tomatoes. I let this simmer all day on low in the crockpot. I use the blender due to my family not liking chunky spaghetti sauce. When I cook it all day I don't cook the carrots, onions, and garlic first! I let them get tender in the tomatoes. I add the browned ground meat after I have blended the sauce in the blender.Enjoy! This is my mom's spaghetti sauce recipe that I grew up with! It is a tried and true recipe! It is even good as pizza sauce!