Bolognese Meat Sauce

This recipe is modified from a cook book I got when we traveled to Italy. It's simple and straight forward and has been my favorite meat sauce ever since.

Ingredients:
1.5 lb ground beef
.5 lb un-somked bacon, chopped
2 brown diced onions
2 cups diced celery
2 cups diced carrots
4 cloves
1 cup chicken stock
2T tomato paste
1T black peppercorns

Directions:
Crisp the bacon in a dutch oven saucepan or pot. Scoop out the excess fat from the bacon. Add ground beef and cook until the meat turns a nice brown color. Add vegetables and cook for 5 minutes under medium heat. Add tomato paste, cloves, black peppercorns and just enough stock to cover the mixture. Bring up to boil then turn to low heat and simmer for 2 hours.

The secret is the more it cooks (without burning), the better it will be. Add more stock or water if it needs but without exaggerating. The sauce should be moist but not liquid.

I like to freeze half of it for when I don't have time to cook.