Italian Tomato Sauce

1 pound Jimmy Dean sausage
spoonful of diced garlic (honestly don't know how much I added...just a spoonful of the pre-diced stuff!)
2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained
2 cans tomato sauce
2 t basil
1 t oregano
1/2 t salt
1/2 t fennel seed
1/4 t pepper (I just poured it in, so this is just a guess...may have been more. I LOVE pepper!)

Brown sausage. The original recipe I stole my ideas from, called for a couple tablespoons of oil...so instead of draining the grease from the meat...I took a paper towel and sopped up some of the excess (so it had some of the oiliness...but wasn't too greasy and I didn't have to add any more oil!).

Add garlic and brown it up...

Combine remaining ingredients to sausage and garlic mixture. Bring to a boil and then let it simmer. (We were in a hurry so I didn't let it simmer for long. The original recipe says 45 minutes, but who has that kind of time???)

We added some ravioli to the sauce and combined it all together. Delicious! Would work great over spaghetti too!

I was amazed at how easy this was to make. Making my own spaghetti-like sauce has always been a little intimidating!

-Adapted from Betty Crocker cookbook