Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

Normally, I just open a jar of organic spaghetti sauce, but I am finding it harder and harder to find sauces that don't contain extra sugars, plus my family eats most of the sauce and there are hardly any leftovers, so I decided to venture and make my own. It was worth it and not very difficult at all!

*I used canned organic tomatoes, but next time I will definitely use fresh ones!

3 cans (28 oz) organic diced tomatoes (or 6 small cans)-I would guess 6-9 cups fresh
1 can (6oz) organic tomato paste
4-6 carrots diced (or pureed to keep hidden if your kids don't eat them)
1/2 onion pureed
1 cup diced mushrooms
6-8 garlic cloves
4 Tbsp fresh basil
2 Tbsp dried organic oregano
1/4-1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (if you like red pepper, you could puree the real thing also)
Sea Salt
Ground Pepper

1. Puree/Dice the carrots, onion, garlic, mushrooms, and basil in a blender or food processor and toss into the crock pot (these develop into a great flavor in the sauce).
2. Puree 2 of the 3 cans of diced tomatoes to make a smoother sauce (or less if you enjoy chunkier sauces) and add into the crock pot.
3. Place the remaining ingredients into the crock pot.
*Cook on high for 6-8 hours
*Cook on low for 8-10 hours
*Or here's what I did since I was home on and off and I enjoyed sampling throughout the day...
-Cook on low for the first 5 hours, then switch to high for 2-3 hours and open the cover a bit to let the excess water soak up. I then separated the sauce in half and froze half of it, while I browned some grass-fed ground beef and added it to the remaining sauce for dinner that night. We were one our way to swimming lessons, so I set my crock pot on warm and simmered the meat sauce for 2 more hours until dinner time!

You really can't over do it (just don't add the meat too soon or it might get dry)...I tasted it throughout and the more it cooked, the tastier if was. It isn't sweet like jarred sauce (because it lacks cancer causing sugar) but it was very good! We ate this with brown rice pasta, but I actually ate mine mostly plain!