Ingredients:

1 large onion
2 medium carrots
2 stalks of celery
3 garlic cloves
¼ cup olive oil
1 28 oz can of tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
3-4 lbs ground beef
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 TBS salt
1 tsp pepper
Bay leaf (optional)

Instructions:

1. Cut your onion, carrots, and celery into quarters. Peel garlic cloves. Put all the vegetables and the garlic into a food processor and blend until it’s an orange paste with a grainy texture.
2. Put olive oil in the bottom of a large pot and heat over medium high. Add your veggie paste, along with cinnamon, oregano, salt, and pepper. Turn heat to medium and saute until veggies are slightly browned and onions smell sweet.
3. Add your ground beef to the pot, browning it as best you can without burning the veggies (it doesn’t need to be very browned, just break it up and get all the large raw chunks cooked).
4. Pour in your can of tomatoes and add your bay leaf and balsamic. Turn heat down to low and simmer uncovered for about 2 hours, until the fat from the meat starts to separate and you can see it on the top. Stir often, the bottom burns easily! If you do check on the pot and find the bottom burned, just pour the sauce into a new pot without scraping the bottom of the burned one (don’t just keep simmering it with a burned bottom, you will taste it. Trust me, I’ve done it and it’s not good.)