Pasta Sauce with Sausage, Meatballs, and a Twist

Al and Cathy make the best pasta sauce and I finally got the recipe. I changed a couple things and it was still fantastic, see my notes at the bottom. I'd never seen 'Italian sauce' before, Al sent me a picture and I went searching and sure enough - our grocery store carries it in the canned tomato aisle (not by the jarred pasta sauce like I imagined). They add Italian sausage links, meatballs, and peeled hard boiled eggs to the sauce when serving - sidenote: Mary also adds sausage links and meatballs when serving and I've always loved that, I've never heard of hard boiled eggs tho and they are great served with the pasta sauce! Weird but great.  I didn't ask but in step 1 it says to brown sausage but doesn't list that in the ingredients, so I just cut 4 links in half and browned them in step 1. 

• 1 (45 oz.) jar Ragu Chunky garlic and onion sauce 
• 1 can Italian sauce 
• 2 (6 oz) cans tomato paste
• 2 (28 oz) cans of water
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 t. garlic powder
• 1 t. salt
• 1/2 t. pepper
• 1 T. fresh parsley, chopped
• 1/2 t. thyme
• 1 t. basil
• 1 t. oregano
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 t. rosemary
• 3 T. sugar

1. brown sausage in a little olive oil in stock pot, remove sausage but leave juices in pot
2. add onion to pot and saute until soft
3. add the rest of ingredients and simmer slowly stirring often to prevent sticking to bottom of pot
4. after about one and a half to two hours when sauce starts to thicken a little add sausage, meatballs, and eggs; simmer until you get to desired thickness. 

Jill's notes: I used Paul Newman's tomato and basil pasta sauce and only 1/2 of a small onion diced very small because if Dave saw the Ragu jars that say 'garlic and onion' and/or see a bunch of onion in the sauce he'll complain! I also didn't have fresh parsley so substituted with dry. I cooked this on the stove top for 3 hours, turned it off and let it cool until closer to when we were going to eat it and then heated it back up. Everyone commented on how good this sauce is without my even asking! Oh, and in all the years I've grocery shopped I have never seen 'Italian Sauce' so I asked Al where he finds it (thinking a specialty store) - uh yeah, it's at the regular ol' grocery store with the canned tomatoes...who knew?!