Sick and Cooking Away

Hey y'all!

I've been sick for the past two days.  Lots of drainage, feverish, SORE THROAT, headache.. I was so tempted to take a picture of my red and swollen throat and share it with you but then again, you might think it's a picture of something else that I am not going to mention here.  Something I would like to share though, I don't usually eat General Tso chicken because I insisted that it is bad chinese food and a real chinese person shouldn't eat fake chinese food.  But boy, with me being sick, I ordered these babies up like hot cakes and I have to say, they make your fart stink like rotten eggs!

Anyway, after popping a few doses of Dayquil yesterday, I decided to make Dan da Man some beef shank Osso Bucco, sans the wine, added some tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.

Things I used:

• 2 Leftover Beef Shanks from Saraga International Market, almost rotten but after being heavily seasoned, they should be good to eat
• 1 Medium sized white onion (I like white onion because they sprout slower than the yellow onions, and you know when you go white.....)
• 2 very good looking carrots, sliced however big you like
• 2 stalks of celery, sliced however big you like
• 6 cloves of garlic, slightly chopped, the more the merrier i would say, not that anyone's going to kiss me when I am sick.
• 3 tablespoons of brown sugar
• 1 big can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 cup (1 small can) beef broth
• 6 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• Cooking oil (I used vegetable oil)
• Salt 'n Peppa

What I did:

1. Turn on my oven to allow it to pre-heat to 300degF.
2. Heat up my dutch oven (courtesy of Jacq M. for my birthday one year, thank you very much) on the stove.
3. At the mean time, pat dry the beef shanks, season both sides with lots of salt 'n peppa.
4. Add enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of your dutch oven.
5. DO NOT THROW IN the shanks! (I will tell you why)
6. Slowly, slide in the shanks to brown both sides (Note: Julia Child said, "don't crowd the pan, or else they don't brown") - I used medium high heat, about 5 minutes each side.
7. Remove the shanks from heat, place them aside.
8. Using the same dutch oven, DO NOT THROW IN the vegetables!  ( I will tell you why)
9. Slowly, put it in cut vegetables - onions, carrots, celery and garlic.
10. Gently saute for about 4 minutes.
11. Dump in the shanks and the rest of the ingredients.
12. Let it simmer on the stove then bring it to the oven to cook for 3 hours!
13. 3 hours later, enchoyyyyyy your very delicious Beef Shanks Braised in Balsamic Sauce!!

OK, I know it doesn't look very appetizing here but trust me Dan confirmed that it was delicious!

So, about not throwing things into a hot pan.... I know that we are not supposed to do that, which retards do that anyway??    but the heat from the dutch oven was really scaring me and I was acting all stupid and girly and so I decided to just "toss" my beef shank in.  Here's the picture of the aftermath (my right wrist):

It wasn't too bad really.  So I went on chopping my vegetables and everything.  When it was time to "gently put in" my vegetables, I decided to just throw the vegetables all at once, into the sizzling hot pot with all the oil on the bottom (picture of my right forearm):

I am not that bad of a cook, just a very clumsy, high on cough syrup and painkillers one.

PS:  I strongly recommend you try the recipe!