Now I know what you may be thinking, bit late isn’t she with this post, well you would be correct and I have a very good reason for that. Firstly we moved house on the 2nd April, that in itself is a lot of hard work and stress and one of the main reasons I have paid so little attention to my blog, but on top of that Hubby got rushed into hospital with his appendix and I ended up having to orchestrate the whole move on my own!!!

So let me take you back a bit to Mother’s Day and the calm before the storm.

I had the most wonderful Mother’s Day, fantastic presents, cards, flowers and Hubby treated me to a morning of Spa treatments at the Nutfield Priory Hotel. I started my day with my favourite breakfast of http://dianastaveley.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/luca-25102001-pancakes-doughnut-french.html and lots of bubbly and then Hubby made my favourite meal of Ossobucco served with a simple risotto for dinner.

Ossobuco or osso buco is Italian for “bone with a hole”, a reference to the marrow hole at the center of the cross-cut veal shank. In the local Western Lombard Milanese dialect, this dish’s name is oss bus.

I can not thank him enough for my wonderful day and making me feel so special and loved and it prepared me well for the following weeks of hard graft, nursing him back to health and lots of stress !

So its good to be back, we are in our gorgeous new home, which I will tell you about in another post, settled and I am back baking away, so even though I have a lot of decorating to do, I hope to be back in the swing of things blog related.

Buon appetito

Ingredients

Serves 6
10g packet dried porcini
6 thick cut veal shin bone, complete with marrow. Ask your butcher for hind quarter shin bones (about 4cm thick), as they’re meatier and more tender than the front ones a small handful of plain flour, seasoned
50g unsalted butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 large carrot , diced
1 large celery stick, trimmed and diced
200ml dry white wine
225ml tomatoes sugocasa or passata
1 tsp Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon powder dissolved in 250ml/9fl oz hot water

Soak the porcini for at least 15 minutes in 200ml/7fl oz boiling water.

Don’t remove the membrane that holds the veal together, but trim off any obviously fatty or lumpy bits.

Dust both sides of the meat with the seasoned flour.

Heat the butter and oil in a very large flameproof sauté pan or casserole over a medium-high heat. When the sizzling stops, put in the veal and fry the slices for 2-3 minutes on each side until golden brown. Transfer the meat to a plate.

Replace the pan over a low to medium heat and tip in the carrot and celery. Gently fry for 5 minutes until the vegetables have slightly softened, then raise the heat and pour in the wine. Bubble the wine furiously for 2 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat.

Fish the softened porcini out of the soaking liquid, squeeze out the excess moisture and reserve it. Chop the porcini roughly and add to the sauté pan, together with the soaking liquid. Add the sugocasa or passata and stock, then stir.

Put the veal back into the pan in a single layer, cover and bring to the boil. Immediately reduce the heat and simmer very gently for 2 hours, turning the veal slices halfway, until the meat is very soft. The liquid should reduce to a thickish sauce, but if it’s still thin after 1¼ -1½ hours, half remove the lid to allow evaporation.

Serve with a simple risotto.