Drool alert! You may need a napkin

Such a tasty day. I don't often blog about food, which is sort of amazing given how good a cook Linda is, but today you have to suffer through me burbling about food.

After the brutal crushing disappointment of finding the Repsol hot tub out of action we settled in for a nice swim. Yes, my swim mojo is coming back. Yes, BRBE is swimming faster. There were several water polo games going on in the other pool, so it wasn't exactly a peaceful tranquil swim like Sunday so often is.

On the way home I was invited to have an espresso poured over foamed chocolate milk. That's a new one for me, so how could I refuse? No fancy machine, only a nice model of the moka pot we used in Venice. It was lovely to sip the coffee and chat. No rush. I think I have to get one of those, and see if our grinder will grind coffee that fine.

Home and things are smelling wonderful. We had lamb shank prepared several different ways over Christmas, and it was melt in your mouth each time. We got to wondering if there was such a thing as bison shank, since we love bison. I hadn't considered that such a shank might be the size of our stove, and thus difficult to cook.

Our bison supplier showed us some bison butchered as osso buco, and I was willing to try that. Once a while back in Halifax I had a wonderful meal of venison on a bed of risotto, and mentioned we hadn't had that for a while. As it turns out Linda has never cooked risotto the proper way and was happy to try.

So that amazing smell was the bison simmering away in a sauce of tomatoes, carrots, celery, shallots, and some herbs and spices to taste, with some red wine and chicken stock splashed in. I had to zoom back out for some parmesan cheese, and it was smelling even better than before. I don't think Linda quite appreciated how good it smelled, not having come in from outside. My tummy was beginning to rumble in appreciation.

Risotto has to be stirred constantly, and when it was done the bison was done. The bison and risotto went together perfectly! The bison was fall off the bone tender, and the risotto was firm but creamy. Some red wine with the meal, and I was in heaven. Saskatoon berry pie from Yum bakery for dessert.

You can't see the risotto in that photo, and believe me it was hard to pause even long enough for an iPhone shot, and I wasn't about to rearrange it. It's not really a kilo of meat, though it looks it. There's a big chunk of bone that went back into the sauce to be simmered some more, in preparation for the next meal.

We don't eat out all that much because we (and by we I mostly mean Linda) can produce a meal the equal of all but the fanciest places, at a fraction of the cost. I will stack my BBQ rack of lamb against any restaurant in the city. Once you've had one of our bison burgers, you'll never go back to a fast food place again. Plus we're home, so we can have two glasses of wine if we want, and not worry about the drive. And no, I don't mind doing dishes.

I just zoomed out to the library to pick up an item on hold, and when I got home it still smelled like dinner. I'm almost hungry again.

Here's the two recipes Linda started with, then modified a little along the way.
Osso Buco
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/veal-osso-buco-358371

Risotto
https://www.thespruce.com/risotto-recipe-for-beginners-996008