Italian Sausage Sauce with Spaghetti

I love tomatoes.  One of my favorite dishes is spaghetti.  Many combinations...with meatballs, eggplant parmigiano, meat sauce...as long as is covered with a red gravy.  I like the natural flavors of the tomato to overpower the dish.  I do use spices, but to a limit.  My two favorite herbs to use with tomato are basil and oregano.  This sauce is simple to prepare and does not require hours of cooking.  You can opt for store bought sauce and just add the sausage...or get your hands dirty.  When I purchase premade sauce, I add tomato paste and fresh herbs to the sauce, just to bring it to life.

For my dish a trip to the food market was a must.  Thought of combining sweet and hot sausage, but since I was also cooking for my son, opted for sweet.  Allright let's see if I can get a bargain.  The price for the italian sausage (in casing) was about $5 for more or less a pound.  I shifted my gaze over to the left and there I saw it...italian sausage patties...price $1.99 for 1 lb.  Why not get the patties when I intend to remove the casing, plus I am saving $3?  Boom, got my deal of the day!

Pasta:  I go nuts over pasta...all kinds, but for my spaghetti dishes I prefer the thin spaghetti.  Angel hair disappears in my mounth, and the regular spaghetti feels odd.  This recipe can be made with any pasta, even used as a lasagna filler.  To each its own.

Ingredients:
1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
1 small carrot, finely chopped
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlics, minced
1 tbsp tomato paste
about 1/4 tsp of the following:  dried oregano, crushed dried peppers, garlic powder
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 lb italian sausage
1/2 package thin spaghetti

Procedure:
In a skillet, crumb the sausage and brown.  Transfer cooked sausage to another container.  In the same skillet, using the dripping from the sausage, add your  carrot, onion and garlic, and cook until translucent.  Add your spices, sugar and tomato paste.  I am adding sugar to combat the accidity of the tomatoes.  Add the tomatoes, make sure you scratch the bottom of the pan (deglaze).  Season with salt and pepper.  You can opt to add olive oil.  It all depends on how much fat you have from the sausage.  Your choice, I eyeball it to about 1/4 tsp.  Once this mixture comes to a boil, add your sausage.  Cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Simmer.  Cook pasta.

I topped with Parmesan Romano grated cheese and Italian bread.  Bread was cut in slices, topped with some of the sauce, mozzarella and parmesan romano cheese and baked for about 10 minutes.  An addition to this will be a green salad with a simple balsamic vinegar dressing.

Buon appetito!