Marinara Sauce

I love marinara sauce. I love it on pasta, I love it on polenta, I even love to heat it up and dip bread in it. Yum. I usually use jarred marinara sauce, because it's easy and still very yummy. My favorite is Prego, because it's slightly sweeter than some of the others.
I made this sauce last night to go with my gnocchi, because I didn't want to spend all that time making homemade gnocchi and then just put some store-bought sauce on top. It was worth the extra effort, although it was a lot easier than I had expected.
I used my food processor to cut up all of the vegetables I needed: carrots, celery, and onion. I cut them up pretty fine because I don't like my sauce to be too chunky.

Then I sauteed the onion and some garlic in some olive oil in a large pan.

When the onions were soft, after about 10 minutes, I added the carrots and the celery, along with some salt and pepper. I sauteed these until they were soft.

Then I added two cans of crushed tomatoes and some bay leaves, reduced the heat to low, and let it simmer for an hour.

Finally, take out the bay leaves and you're done! This is the final product:

It was really yummy and sweet, but not super intense like the jarred sauces can be. It was mild and delicious. It made about 2 quarts, so there was plenty extra to freeze for a future meal.
Here's the recipe:

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil

2 onions

2 garlic cloves

2 stalks celery

2 carrots

1/2 t salt

1/2 t ground black pepper

2 32 oz. cans crushed tomatoes

2 bay leaves

Instructions:

1. Finely chop the onions, garlic, celery, and carrots.
2. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Saute the onions and the garlic until they are soft, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the carrots, celery, salt, and pepper. Cook until soft, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the tomatoes and the bay leaves, and simmer uncovered until the sauce thickens, about 1 hour. Remove the bay leaves, and season with salt and pepper.
5. Eat.

Source: Food Network, Giada De Laurentiis