Osso Buco with Polenta

CASE: Make dinner for Brandon's dad and stepmom. Brandon's father has a small esophagus and Brandon loves bone marrow. Solution? Osso Buco! I feel like restaurants normally pair Osso Buco with pasta, and while I can see how that's perfectly tasty, I really prefer this dish with creamy, cheesy polenta. Call me a wannabe Italian, but I think the pasta takes away from the richness of the meat and sauce. The polenta makes you focus on the tomatoey, thick texture of the Osso Buco, as opposed to pasta, which soaks up the sauce and tries to compete for attention. This is probably the only time in history that I will discourage the consumption of pasta!

POLENTA
1 box of Italian-made polenta
1 handful grated parmesan cheese
5-10 basil leaves roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Boil water and cook polenta to the directions, make it as soup-y or thick as you'd like. Add the rest of the ingredients right after you turn off the heat, making sure to stir the polenta until all the cheese melts.

OSSO BUCO
1/2 stick butter
6 veal shanks, about 3 lbs total
1 large carrot, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1/2 large onion, diced
4 cloves diced garlic
4 T olive oil or vegetable oil
3/4 c flour
2 cups dry white wine
32 fl oz beef stock
1 large can of chopped tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
4 fresh bay leaves
3/4 T thyme
salt and pepper

Saute your sofrito in the butter. Use a nice wide, flat Dutch oven. When the vegetables are soft (5 minutes) add your garlic and cook a few more minutes. Set aside. In the same pan, pour in your oil and get it really hot! Dry off your shanks and flour them right before frying. Brown deeply. Set aside. Pour wine in and get up and all the bits (there shouldn't be much oil when you take out the shanks, if there is a lot of oil, take some out so that the wine doesn't splatter too much and just discard the extra oil). Simmer the oil, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Once it's simmered and nice and hot, pour into another container. Then, in your same Dutch oven, place your vegetables down and place your meat on top. Then pour your broth all back on the shanks. Make sure the shanks are well immersed in the liquid, if not, add more stock, tomato sauce, wine or even water. Simmer a few minutes, put the lid on, and then pop into the oven and 350 degrees for 2 hours. Check a couple of times to make sure they're still covered, and be sure to baste them if not. The meat should be falling off the bone.

NOTE: This is so, so easy to make. It's about 15 minutes of cooking, and then 2 hours of napping. The polenta cooks in 5 minutes. I served this with bread, fig jam, goat cheese, and prosciutto as an appetizer. Couldn't have been a better meal for a dinner party. I didn't bother with salad.

VERDICT: GUILTY! OF BEING DELICIOUS! (We made some pappardelle for the kids to eat with the Osso Buco. Brandon's little sister, who 's 9 and recently became a vegetarian, accidentally got a little meat on her plate. She said she would eat around it. Well, the next thing she said was that she would just eat this little bit. That was the last we heard from her because she completely finished it off! In fact, all the kids LOVED this dish, which is such a great thing to know. It's good for adults and kids, be they 9 or in high school.)