Mom's Spaghetti Meat Sauce

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again."
- George Miller

This is the spaghetti sauce I grew up eating.  To some that might seem strange.  Not many kids enjoy eating mushrooms, peppers, and onions.  Go ahead, call me weird.  I don't mind at all.  The only thing that would make this recipe, and the resulting sauce, any better (and more authentic to my childhood, mind you) would be if Spice Islands would suddenly bring back their spaghetti seasoning.  Hear my plea, Spice Islands!  At any rate, this is a pretty quick and easy sauce to throw together.  You can simmer it all day if you'd like, or it can be done in about 45 minutes (including picture taking time here, folks).  It all depends on how tender you like your veggies to be.  Me?  I don't mind a little crunch.  You can easily increase the size of the batch, since everything is in ones.  When we double (ahem, quadruple) the recipe, whatever we don't use immediately we freeze for later use.  If you do this, just be sure to either use freezer zipper bags (lay them flat on a rimmed pan with the bag folded just under the zipper, resting on the rim - once they are solid, stack them or stand them up) or freezer-safe lidded plastic or glass containers.  Do not, under any circumstances, freeze or store this in metal.  The acid from the tomatoes will do very unpleasant things to the metal and also taint the sauce.

Mom's Spaghetti Meat Sauce

1 can Campbell's condensed tomato soup

1/2 can of water (use soup can)

1 (15 oz) can Hunt's tomato sauce

1 Tb Italian seasoning (or more if you like it herbier)

1 lb ground beef

1 bell pepper, diced

1 onion, diced

1 (4oz) can mushroom stems and pieces, drained, diced

1 lb spaghetti or angel hair pasta

1 loaf crusty bread (Italian, French, etc)

1. Dice pepper, onion, and mushrooms.

2. Mix soup, water, sauce, seasoning, pepper, onion, and mushrooms together in large, heavy-bottomed (to prevent sticking/scorching) pot or Dutch oven.  Simmer over medium-high heat.  If it starts to splatter everywhere, turn it down a notch or two.

3. Start your pasta water heating so it will be boiling by the time you finish this step.  Brown beef over medium heat, drain, add to sauce.  Stir to mix.  Simmer sauce over medium-low heat until spaghetti is done.

4. Prepare your favorite type of spaghetti or angel hair pasta (or any other pasta for that matter) according to package directions.

5. Using tongs, remove pasta from cooking water and add to sauce.  Stir thoroughly.  My biggest complaint here is that the sauce tends to want to sink to the bottom, so you might want to turn the spaghetti out into a serving platter or large bowl so most of the sauce is on top.

6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Slice bread into thick (~2") slices and place on a baking sheet.  I used a pizza pan with vent holes in it.  Bake for 5 minutes, just until the bread is heated through.

7. Serve the spaghetti with pre-grated parmesan (or freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano) and bread with butter.