Italian Truffle Cheese and Osso Buco

Went to Kansas City on Friday and discovered a great place to buy cheese and not spend lots of money on shipping. Here in Northwest Arkansas, there is not a really good cheese selection to be had - there are some supermarkets that try to carry some gourmet cheeses, but you have to watch out for expiration dates because not enough people purchase them. But, Kansas City has two locations for Better Cheddar. What peaked my interest from their website was the Sottocenere Truffle Cheese, a semi-soft cow's milk cheese that has shavings of black truffle running through it. The cheese is very rich, earthy, and unique.

So, on Saturday, I made a batch of risotto and finished it off with a pat of butter and some shavings of the cheese. The flavor was very subtle in the dish.

As a main course, I decided to do Mario Batali's Osso Buco. Ivan's Old Time Meat Shop had the four veal shanks in the very back of their freezer - I bought them out, and they were very happy to sell them to me - cost was around $70.00 for them.



As sides, we had the aforementioned risotto, fresh green beans, homemade french bread, and slices of the Italian truffle cheese. And, as a desert, Arkansas is going to the Sugar Bowl - Go Hogs!