Roasted Double Veal Chops (Page 455)

RECIPE #1214

• Date: Monday, September 6, 2010 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B+
  

I saw veal chops at Whole Foods and decided to make this recipe. I started by cooking some pancetta. I removed the pancetta from the skillet and browned the veal chops in the fat. Then I roasted the veal in the oven to 135 degrees. While the veal roasted I cooked garlic in the fat from the veal and pancetta. I deglazed the skillet with white wine, then added veal stock and reduced. When the veal was done roasting I let the meat rest, and meanwhile deglazed the roasting pan with the wine mixture. I stirred butter, parsley, thyme, pancetta, and pepper into the sauce. I sliced the veal chops and served them with the sauce. This dish was pretty good. The veal was quite tender and nicely cooked. The sauce was flavorful, although I found it much too thin. My special gentleman was completely wowed by this dish -- he suggested a grade of A. I wasn't quite as impressed. It was certainly good, but I thought a richer sauce with a thicker consistency would have been better.

The recipe is here.

Only 79 recipes left to go!

Ugh. What a day. Today seemed like a promising day. I didn't have to wake up until 8am. I had lots of unscheduled time to get work done. And my special gentleman and I had tickets to a wine and beer night at the zoo tonight. When I went to bed last night I thought, "Tomorrow will be a fun day!"

It didn't turn out that way.

The day went pretty smoothly until about 11am, when a killer headache set in. I don't often get headaches since I quit drinking caffeine, more than 5 years ago now. Obviously headaches are no fun for anyone, especially the sort of mind-numbing can't-focus-your-eyes headache I had today. On top of just the pain and unpleasantness of it though, ever since I was diagnosed with my tumor headaches have made me a little nervous. I know, of course, that it is extremely unlikely that the headache I had this afternoon had anything to do with my brain tumor. But the thought always occurs to me that it might, and it never makes the situation better.

So I was in a lot of pain and consequently having trouble concentrating. By 3:30pm or so I had used up whatever focus I could muster, and I was exhausted. So I left the office and headed home. I was desperate to get home. So desperate, in fact, that I biked home through a downpour. I arrived home drenched, as though I had stood in the shower with my clothes on. I dried off, changed clothes, and relaxed for a few minutes, looking forward to our trip to the zoo despite the weather. I wasn't home long before I heard one of the cats meowing in the basement. I went to check on them and discovered that during the torrential rain, the basement had flooded.

So instead of spending a fun evening at the zoo drinking beer and wine we spent a miserable evening in the basement with a wet vac and a bucket of bleach water. The drying, cleaning, and disinfecting is far from done, but we have made considerable progress. The poor cats -- their food, water, and litterbox are all down there, and they were not happy at all about all the water. I wasn't happy either. *Sigh*

Now it is 9pm, and although there are a million things I should do, I feel like giving up on the day and going to sleep. I may just do that.