Tonight my boyfriend asked for some pasta. I wasn’t in the mood for spending much time behind the stove so I whipped up some thing that would be nice and comforting and easy on me at the same time!

The salad takes literally 2 minutes once you’ve wash your greens.

My vinaigrette: salt & pepper, a tip of the knife of French Dijon mustard, then 2 table spoons of Banyuls’ vinegar (a wine vinegar made from grapes grown in the French region of Banyuls-sur-Mer) whisk all together until you see the mustard dissolved then grab your best olive oil and gently and slowly drizzle about 4 table spoons of oil while still whisking. Dip a couple leafs in the dressing and Taste it! Need more of something? If you are like me you might want a bit more vinegar, not because it taste better but I thing that’s a childhood flaw. When I grew up my grandmother had her own red wine vinegar, it could have burn through anything you can imagine, but the dressing she use to make with it was always so good and yes always on the more acidic side, so there she screwed my palate now I like more acidic salad dressing.

The Osso Bucco is something for me easy to make, it’s one of those throw all together and let it cook for a while.

I started to brown my meat: 2 veal shank, about 1 inch 1/2 thick. Pat them really dry with a paper towel, in a plate lay some all purpose flour. Make sure you cover the meat entirely, give it  a good shake to remove the excess flour. I use my Le Creuset dutch oven for this recipe, any deep pan/pot will do. A table spoon of butter a small drizzle of oil, sear your meat until evenly browned and set aside.

Then in the same pot I am going to sweat 1 onion, 1 carrot and 2 stalk of celery diced. (if you are like me and have a bunch of celery left over, pull out the chicken bones you have been saving in your freezer, carrot, onion, garlic, bouquet garni and make a stock!)

Once the carrot, onion and celery get soft, I had some salt pepper, some garlic minced, a good table spoon of Tomato paste, and let it cook for a couple minute, keep on stirring you don’t want it to burn. Then add a couple glass of red wine, a good quality canned tomatoes. Stir all together, put the meat back in and reduce the fire to really low. You should see just a little bubbles coming to the surface. Then cover for about 1 hour and go do what you have to do.

I usually serve it on a bed of spaghetti. I would have like to have a picture for you but I think William and I got too hungry and I forgot to take the picture of the finale! Ooops

The meat was falling of the bone, it was great. If you see that your sauce is too thick then uncover and let it reduce a bit. If it’s too thick, I usually add a cup of stock.

You will have a lot of sauce left over so don’t panic, pull out one of those wonderful plastic container you have around, fill it up and freeze it. I swear one night you will be happy to find it and just warming it up and put over a bed of pasta, that will make a nice dish in no time. I do work too, so I like sometimes to have things like this ready for me.

Bon Appétit!