It Was 33 Years Ago Today

 

Thirty-three years ago, my cat, Amaretto, and I embarked on a new chapter together. This photo has always been one of my favorites. While Amaretto is no longer with us, I'm sure he'll be the first furry friend to greet me on the other side.

For our 33rd-anniversary dinner Chris and I decided to eat at home this year. And what better way to mark the occasion than with a hearty and comforting Osso Bucco.

The Osso Bucco was cooked in the slow cooker for 8 hours on low.

It was a delicious dinner. 

And I am so glad that Chris is not a fan of the marrow in the bones!!!

The recipe is from the Table for Two blog. The recipe is for 4 so obviously I made 1/2 the recipe.

Slow Cooker Osso Bucco

Ingredients-

1 teaspoon olive oil

4 pieces veal shank, each about 1 1/4 inches thick (about 2 pounds total)

1/3 cup (53 g) chopped onion

1/3 cup (34 g) chopped celery

1/3 cup (43 g) chopped carrots

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 1/4 cups (303 g) canned crushed tomatoes

3/4 cup (178 ml) beef broth

Fresh ground black pepper

3 sprigs fresh thyme

1 large sprig fresh rosemary

Chopped fresh parsley, for topping

Method-

Heat oil in a medium nonstick skillet over medium high heat. 

I tied the veal shanks so they would stay together while braising. Click here for a video on how to tie the shanks and brown the meat before adding to the slow cooker.

Season veal shanks with salt then sear all four sides until browned but not cooked through. 

Add to the insert of a slow cooker.

Then add the onion, celery, carrots, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, beef broth, black pepper, thyme, and rosemary. 

Stir to mix a bit.

Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. 

Discard sprigs of thyme and rosemary. 

Sprinkle fresh parsley on top prior to serving, if desired.

Classic Osso Buco

Yesterday I was out shopping with my sister and on the way home, we stopped at Ferrarro's Meat Market. I was hoping to pick up sandwich steaks for tonight's dinner. What I got instead was Osso Buco. Wow! What a fantastic dinner! I found an easy recipe on the Cooking with Nonna site. So good!

Classic Osso Buco from Rossella’s Cooking with Nonna.

Ingredients-
4 veal shank steaks approx 1 inch thick
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup red wine
3 carrots diced
2 potatoes diced
2 celery stalks diced
1 large onion diced
3 bay leaves
all-purpose flour for dredging meat
salt and pepper


Method-
Preheat oven to 350˚F
Dredge shanks lightly with flour and fry in olive oil until browned on both sides, place in a roasting pan.
Saute all veggies in the same pan until slightly soft approx 8 minutes.
Add sauce and wine and cook an additional 5 minutes
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Pour veggies over veal shanks in roasting pan and add the bay leaves.
Cover and place in oven for approx. 1 hour.
Remove cover and roast for 25 minutes.
The osso buco should be fork tender with a thick sauce and tender veggies.

I made Roasted Brussel Spouts and Aborio Rice as sides. Perfect dinner!

For breakfast, I made Brown Sugar Apple and Cinnamon Chip Scones. Loved these!! I have been looking for Cinnamon Chips at every local store I go into. I can never find them. Until I checked Amazon. Yup. Found them!

I was going to make just Cinnamon Chip Scones but then I noticed the apples on the counter. What happened next resulted in the best scones I have ever made.

Brown Sugar Apple and Cinnamon Chip Scones

Ingredients-
2 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp baking soda, sieved
0.5 tsp salt
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 c diced apple
1c cinnamon chips (see note)
1 egg, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 c buttermilk
raw sugar for dusting

Method-
Combine the flour, baking powder, and soda, salt, and sugar. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in the cinnamon chips. Stir in diced apple. Combine the egg yolk, the vanilla, and the buttermilk; stir this into the dry ingredients until just combined. Turn the dough out onto a lightly flowered surface and knead for 6-10 turns. Divide the dough in half and pat each half into a 6-7 inch circle. Cut each circle into 8 wedges. Brush each circle with lightly beaten egg white, dust it with sugar and transfer the wedges to an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 18-22 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack; after 5 minutes, cover loosely with a dish towel until completely cool.

Slow Cooker Pork Osso Buco

I have a new favorite slow cooker recipe. Slow Cooker Pork Osso Buco,  from The Gluten Free Homestead. Today I had a lot of things to get done. I was so glad I found this recipe. The recipe called for 8 hours on high. I lowered it to warm after 6 hours and then put it back up to low for the last 45 minutes. The meat fell off the bone. The sauce was delicious. I can only imagine what this would taste like with veal...

Ingredients-
2 pounds pork shank osso buco tied with butcher's twine
2 tablespoons of butter for searing the pork (or coconut oil if you prefer)
1 stick of butter for gravy, optional
1 onion, diced.
1 carrot, peeled and diced
¼ cup flour
3 plum tomatoes, diced.
1 bay leaf
1 cup bone broth, homemade
½ cup white wine
¼ teaspoon sage
½ teaspoon oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Method-
Rinse meat under cold water and dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper. Add flour to a shallow dish. Dredge seasoned pork in the flour.
Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet. When the butter foams, add the pork to the skillet. Cook until golden, searing the meat for 4 minutes on each side and transfer to your slow cooker.
Deglaze the skillet with the wine. Scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the skillet and pour into the slow cooker. Add the tomatoes and their juices, bone broth, onion, carrot, celery, sage, oregano and a bay leaf. Cover and cook on low heat for 6 to 8 hours.
Transfer the shanks to a plate, cover and set aside. Strain the juices from the slow cooker into your skillet. Mash veggies to extract liquid as much as possible. Skim the fat off the top of the gravy.
Simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and stir in one stick of butter.

And I can tell you they were good to the last drop!

Osso Bucco and the Day of the Acorn Squash

It was so darn cold out today. And the winds made it a perfect day for a braised beef dish for dinner.
The recipe for Osso Bucco is from Twice Baked Twins. It was so delicious I ate my whole piece including the marrow.

Osso Bucco, from Twice Baked Twins 

Ingredients -

1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 dry bay leaf
2 whole cloves
3 shanks , veal or beef
sea salt & pepper
all purpose flour, for dredging
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine
3 cups chicken stock

Method -
Tie together the rosemary, thyme & bay leaf with twine, set aside. This will be the herb bouquet. For the shanks, pat dry with paper towels, they will brown better if they are dry. Season each piece with salt & pepper and dredge into the flour and shake off the excess. In a large pot, heat the oil and butter until very hot and brown the shanks on each side, about 3 minutes per side. Remove shanks & set aside. In this same pot, add the onion, carrot and celery. Season with salt. Saute until soft, about 8 minutes. Add tomato paste and mix well. Return the shanks to the pot and add the wine and reduce the liquid by about half, about 5 minutes. add the bouquet and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover pan. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours or until meat falls off the bone. Keep checking and turning shanks every 15 minutes or so. You can add a little more stock if needed. The cooking liquid should always be 3/4 of the way on the shank. When done remove the bouquet and remove shanks. At this point you can blend the sauce and vegetable with a hand blender. Taste and re-season.

Now about that Acorn Squash. I stopped at Whole Foods the other night to pick up some things and to get the Acorn Squash for the dish I am bringing to my sister's house on Thanksgiving. The squash were a little larger than I was looking for but I picked 8 of them anyway. On the way home the same night I stopped at Bishop's Orchard for some escarole, the escarole at Whole Foods was just awful, and of course they had the size Acorn Squash that I was looking for. Now I have a few too many squash.

I roasted the ones I was not going to bring to my sister's house and ended up with four 2 cup bags of puree, 2 halves of a squash filled with Pearl Barley, Dried Cherries and Pecans, and a small dish of Acorn Squash Lasagna.

 

All of these went in the freezer.

And being a Sunday some of us took a cat nap...