For years, I've been braising beef shanks for my wife in a mixture of V8 and beef broth. Of late, she has been wanting to avoid tomatoes on account of her stomach, so today I made the shanks with beef broth and red wine, with some sautéed onions and celery for flavor. I cooked it much the same way: I seasoned the shanks generously with kosher salt, pepper and dried basil, coated them with flour, browned them in canola oil and then cooked them in a pressure cooker (with the wine and broth and a bay leaf) for 20 minutes. I then transferred them to a saucepot, added a bit of water (my pressure cooker is old and some water inevitably steams out) and simmered about half an hour. I thickened my gravy with a slurry of corn starch and water and served with instant mashed potatoes.
I thought it was pretty good, although not as good as when I made it with the V8. If I were to do it again I'd add some rice vinegar to my broth and wine, for the acidity. My wife was a bit disappointed. Oh, well.
But that was for her. For my daughter and myself I made hot Jimmy Dean pork sausage with rice and medium salsa. Just brown the meat, add the rice, add the salsa and an appropriate amount of water in the big skillet. Stir, cover, simmer for the appropriate amount of time (for Ben's Original that's 20 minutes), and when the time is complete just turn it off and leave it covered for about 15 minutes. The rice absorbs all that flavor and gets really soft and tasty. So simple, so good.
I scarfed it down so fast I don't even know if it was good. Think I was hungry..
