Osso buco and fresh pasta

We spent some quality time cooking meat out of the freezer. Of course, we also ate so much that we went to restock recently at Star. I listed it out for L today and she said it was a bit obscene. Well, you never can have too much good meat at the ready.

One night, Josh pulled out a veal shank, so I made osso buco from the Art of Braising and actually fully followed the recipe for once. The pictures from the osso buco in the pot were too blurry to use but I cut the veg into larger pieces. Normally, I small dice them or puree for a sauce, but I finally read that they were supposed to be large chunks and -- no surprise -- it was awesome.

Here is the osso buco out of the sauce, ready to be plated. Tender and delicious. And with the gremolata! Delish. I always take the marrow bone. This is one of the last things we don't have to fight over.

There's actually a good amount of meat on a veal shank so one isn't so bad as long as only one of you wants the marrow.

As is traditional, I made a risotto milanese, complete with the saffron. But my pressure cooker is kind of weird (or I just don't know how to use it) so it's really hard to tell when it has actually sealed. I should probably back up and explain that my brother-in-law's mother (who still lives in Florence, Italy) uses a pressure cooker to cook her risotto in like ten minutes and we've replicated the recipe with success. This time, however, when I opened it after 10 minutes, there seemed to be no pressure so I resealed it and cooked it another five or so minutes.

As you can see from the rice, it was overcooked. So sad.

You can see that the sauce turned out chunky and good. I put it into a new bowl that I bought from Sur La Table with an adorable little Japanese kitty hanging on the side. I have two bowls like this and two little plates, too.

Hot off the success of the osso buco, but with the failure of the risotto in mind, I made fresh pasta the next night to go with spaghetti with clams.

Josh has never been as crazy about this dish as I am, but the fresh pasta convinced him! This is one of my best pasta dishes ever.