Slow Cooked "Bolognese" Sauce

I have reeeeally wanted to make some good "spaghetti" or "bologense" sauce lately and have been studying up on ingredients, history, etc. For true facts on honest to goodness bolognese sauce from, you guessed it, Bologna, Italy head on over to the wiki page and read on.

In the meantime, I found a great recipe from Kate over at Framed Cooks.

Since we all know (and if you didn't, you do now) how true food bloggers at heart love to borrow, link back and promote our fellow foodies. Its a food bloggers biggest complement to have anyone cook and enjoy their dish but better yet, have a fellow blogger cook and enjoy their dish and then tell everyone how amazingly delicious it was.

Head over to Kate's place and check out the recipe. I will tell you I made a few variations.

- I took one slice of bacon and chopped it finely and browned with the ground beef.

- I did not use a slow cooker because I got started late. I just used a big stock pot on the stove top.

- I only had one can of tomato sauce so I used 14 oz of Ragu to make up for it instead of schlepping back out to Sprouts.

- I have a friggin garden growing in my fridge because I cannot resist the urge to buy produce (or meat or...) despite the fact that I'm only going to the store for allergy medicine and diapers. So I added finely chopped button mushrooms.

- As I was cleaning (and organizing) my fridge as the sauce was simmering, I found a small schmidge of butter that my mother in law had compounded with garlic. So you know what's next - it went in the pot. It was about a tablespoon.

I'll add a picture once I plate it but Kate's picture says enough.