All-purpose tomato sauce

I've updated my tomato sauce recipe a bit. There are a few variations; with meat or without; with carrots and celery or without. (With carrots and celery is better, but I've made it without before, when I was out of both, and I just increased the onion, garlic and seasonings a bit.) I've included the full version below. Obviously you can leave the meat out if you want.

4 28-oz cans of whole tomatoes
1 big onion, diced
5-6 big cloves of garlic, minced
3 carrots, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
4 links of Italian sausage (2 hot, 2 sweet)
Olive oil
Seasonings: bay leaves, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper

If using the sausage, squeeze it out of the casings and brown it in a little olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, carrots, and celery. Saute until softened. Add the tomatoes with juice and seasonings. Cook on low for a couple of hours, until fragrant and delicious. Season to taste.

Let the sauce cool, and then puree it in your food processor. (That way you get the better flavor of the whole tomatoes, without big weird chunks of tomato.)

At this point I usually divide the pureed sauce into various containers, and freeze most of them. That way I can always pull a container out of the freezer, and have a steady supply of tomato sauce.

This can be used as spaghetti sauce, soup flavoring, or used in any recipe that calls for either canned tomatoes or tomato sauce.