68. Lamb Shanks in Red Wine

Lookie lookie! Who has another official DiS! meal for you? This gal right here!

I feel like it’s been a long time since I posted a whole dinner. The last one was in (lemme check)…it was in April.

APRIL!?!? Well, shit. I’ve definitely veered off course from the original mission of the project. Well, no worries. From Day 1 of DiS! I said that I wasn’t going to give myself an end date, so we’re still OK.

But let’s get back to the cause! Here is 68. Lamb Shanks in Red Wine!

For this lamb dinner I was joined by my buddy Jon.  Note: This is a different Jon than the Jon in Dan & Jon. This Jon is from DC. So he’s DC-NO H-Jon (he’s very particular about that ‘h’) or, for the purposes of this blog, will hence be known as DCJ. 

Anyway, it was a Friday night so DCJ took the MARC (yay, public transportation!) up to Baltimore after the workday. Even though this is (according to #68) a two hour dinner, and could easily be done on a weeknight; I, being the smart cookie that I am, did all the heavy lifting the day before (because it always takes longer than the card says).

Thursday night I browned the meat, cooked the veggies, and got it all in the casserole dish so the only thing I’d have to do the next day is pop it in the oven.

And since I didn’t have to do too much additional cooking on Friday, we were able to sit down and enjoy some of DCJ’s home-brewed Hefeweizen and Framboise. So good! You gotta love it when a dude shows up at your door with a backpack full of hand-crafted beer. Now that’s a good hostess gift.

But back to the dish at hand:

So right before taking the lamb out of the oven (the kitchen smelled really good!) I boiled some bow-tie pasta and tossed it in some butter and DCJ played sous chef and made the Green Beans With Water Chestnuts (this recipe was from the 8/15/99 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

Green Beans With Water Chestnuts

• 1 lb fresh green beans
• 1 can sliced water chestnuts
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp soy sauce

Slice the beans and the water chestnuts ahead of time. Cook just before mealtime in order to serve them piping hot. Combine the chicken broth, ginger root (we used fresh) and garlic in a fry pan. Bring to boil. Add the beans and water chestnuts. Sprinkle with soy sauce. Cover tightly and steam 7 to 8 minutes or until crisp tender. If the moisture has not evaporated, remove the cover, raise the heat slightly and shake the pan to help evaporation of the remaining liquid. Season to taste with pepper. Only 44 calories in a 3/4-cup serving.

Here it is, the finished product:

For the plating, I was so excited because I had the double-sided Pyrex (which you can’t really see) and the casserole in the basket–just like on #68! Yes, I actually cooked the lamb in the CorningWare because it didn’t fully fit in the Pyrex, but it’s all about aesthetics, people! I think the picture turned out OK.

The shank was tasty. The meat was fall-off-the-bone tender. And it (and the red wine sauce) was great on the noodles. As for those green beans, they were good and matched surprisingly well with braised meat (I did question DiS! on that side selection). High five to DCJ! Also, I just love it anytime there is a DiS! component that I don’t have to make.

Notes on the missing items from this dinner: Because I had to get the shank through Relay Foods (do I even have to mention my Safeway?), I bought some other items for the dinner as well: I got tomatoes. Very, very green tomatoes. So we didn’t have sliced tomatoes with dinner; but don’t fret–they came in handy the very next week. Also, I was supposed to get an Applesauce Cake in my  order, but they ran out of the little Jewish Grandma cakes. So this was the next best thing:

We just tore it in half and ate it over the sink. Because DCJ and I are gross like that.

Anyway, I am happy to be back making the full dinners. One more down and 25-ish(?) more to go!!!

I am sorry if you were looking forward to Wiener Wednesday, but I just can’t do them any more. I just can’t. No. More. Hot dogs. This isn’t to say that there won’t be a revival–but there are just no franks today.