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_Prep_
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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
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2. Wash and core tomatoes (http://youtu.be/M_2NKLfXYM0) and slice an X on the bottom. Peel onion and keep whole. Place all tomatoes and the onion on a cookie sheet. Try to keep them from touching each other or the sides of the cookie sheet.
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3. Bake tomatoes and onion for an hour.
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_While tomatoes are baking_
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4. Get out a large pot to cook the sauce in. And get a tiny bowl to pre-measure the spices.
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5. Use a garlic press to press the garlic directly into your large pot, mix with the olive oil, and add the butter. Set aside, but do not cook just yet; this allows garlic oil to fuse with olive oil.
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_Spice Bowl_
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6. Using a mortar and pestle, grind the fennel and oregano to avoid large spice chunks. Add to your small spice bowl.
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7. Finely mince the fresh basil before measuring. Then add the minced basil, salt, sugar, and bay leaves to your spice bowl also. Set spice bowl aside.
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_Cooking_
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8. After the hour of baking is done, let rest for 10-15 minutes, then peel the tomatoes.
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9. In a food processor, chop up 75% of the tomatoes and all of the onion; don't chop them up in your food processor too much, you want some texture in your sauce. Finely dice the remaining tomatoes. Set aside.
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10. In your large sauce pot, on a medium heat, heat the oil, butter, and garlic until you see bubbles around the garlic.
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11. Once you see bubbles, turn heat down to medium-low and add the spices; stir and simmer for 5 minutes.
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12. Add diced tomatoes, tomato paste, food processed onion & tomato, chicken broth, beef cube, and ground beef, stir well to combine.
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13. Gently simmer for 2 hours. Stir occasionally to avoid burning on bottom of pan. For the first hour, leave the lid on the pot, for the rest, leave it off. (Thick bottom pots are best, otherwise, if all you have is a thin bottom pot, stir more often to avoid burning.)
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14. Remove bay leaves and add parsley and simmer for 20 minutes more.
