KK's Spaghetti Sauce

My stepmom makes really good spaghetti sauce and pesto. She gave me her recipe for both, and on Friday I tried out the spaghetti sauce. I mostly followed her recipe and it turned out really yummy :)

Here is my version of her recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 pound of Italian sausage (browned & drained)
• 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes.
• Medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 green pepper, chopped
• 3 cloves of crushed garlic
• 1/4 tsp. of crushed red pepper (she uses 2-3 whole cayenne peppers, but I didn't have any at home, and I was too lazy to run out)
• 2 bay leaves (remove after cooking)
• about 2 TBSP. dried basil
• 1 tsp. dried oregano (she uses 2 TBSP, but oregano isn't my favorite so I cut down on this one)
• 2 tsp. ground fennel seed (easy to grind up in the Cuisinart or food processor)
• 1 TBSP. sugar
• 1 tsp. ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup red cooking wine
• olive oil - 1 or 2 TBSP.
  

Directions:
1. Heat olive oil in saucepan.
2. Saute onions and peppers for a few minutes.
3. Add garlic and saute for about a minute (be careful because this burns easily)
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer all ingredients until sauce slightly thickens (20-30 minutes).
5. Don't forget to remove the bay leaves (and whole cayenne peppers if you used them).
6. Serve with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.