Slow Cooker Pasta Meat Sauce

This is a good easy dinner for the week when you're too tired to prepare a meal when you get home from work.  I don't know about you but I literally want to nap for hours right as I get home.  I prep everything the night before, put it in the slow cooker,  and keep it in the fridge.  Then in the morning I set it on low before going to work. By the time I'm home around five or five thirty, the slow cooker is done doing its magic and I have a delicious dinner ready with just the pasta left to cook.

The ingredients are a pound of ground beef, a large can of diced tomatoes, tomato paste, dried herbs, a small onion, and four small cloves of garlic.

First I dice the onion

and finely chop the garlic.

Then I throw the baby into a hot pan,

and break it up,

season it,

until there's no more pink.

The cooked meat goes into an empty slow cooker.

The onion and garlic get their turn in the same pan...

until the onions are translucent.

I just dump the onion and garlic on top of the ground beef,

along with the diced tomato, 

and the tomato paste.

I carefully mix it all up and season with a little more salt and pepper.

I cover the pot and keep it in the fridge overnight.

After 10 hours set on low...you get a pot of chili! Not really, but it does resemble chili a little.  It's usually too watery so I set it on high with the lid off until it reduces.  Or, when I feel like cheating (and impatient) I stir in a little cornstarch and water mixture to help it thicken.

 I love tomato sauces.

And regular tomatos.

Oh, and all tomato based products.

 

Have it with a pasta of your choice.  I had mine with whole wheat spaghetti.