Firehouse Spaghetti

My friend Maureen's father was a firefighter and this was the recipe used at the station.  I won't ever buy sauce again!! Thanks Maureen!

Firehouse Spaghetti

2 onions chopped (about 1 ¼ cups)

¼ tsp garlic powder

2 bay leaves

3 tsp Italian seasoning

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp pepper

2 tablespoons sugar

46 ounces tomato juice

12 ounces tomato paste

2 – 29 ounce cans puree

½ stick pepperoni

3 lbs bulk ground Italian sausage

2 lbs link Italian sausage (about 10 links)

½ of the 29 ounce can of water

Buy the meat from an Italian butcher.   Cook ground Italian sausage in skillet.  Add the rest of the ingredients above and the cooked ground Italian sausage into a very large pot.  Add the link Italian sausage into the pot (count them first so you know how many are in there).  Cook at 350 for 5 hours stirring every hour.  After three hours pull the link Italian sausage out and cut it into circles much like when you cut your kids hot dogs!  This makes enough to feed around 15 people so be prepared to freeze some if you are not serving a large crowd.  You can make meatballs (recipe below) but you don’t have to.  If you make the meatballs, I would add them at the end before serving.  I also make the meatballs on a different day from the sauce.

Meatballs:

3 lbs hamburger

1 ½ cups Italian bread crumbs

little salt and pepper

3 tsp Worcester sauce

2 tbls parmesan cheese

¼ tsp garlic powder

4 eggs

2 tbls Italian seasoning

1 onion cut up

mix the above together and make into golf balls.  Cook for 1 hour at 350.  It works best to cover a cookie sheet (one with sides) with foil.  Put a medal wire rack inside the cookie sheet and put the meatballs on top.  This keeps the bottoms from burning.