A couple of years ago I made this recipe from Food & Wine on a whim, never having worked with lamb shanks before and wanting to try something new. I was in production on a really hard show, and I remember being incredibly proud of the lamb when it came out of the oven, and then losing my mind over how good it tasted with pasta out of my tupperware at the theater. I have been emotionally frugal with this recipe ever since; it is my Big Guns of comfort food. In case of a serious food emergency, break this out. So it's been a while since I've had it, and I'm definitely making sure it's ready in case I need it during this go around.

Planning!

To be clear, I only use the ragu part of the recipe. I don't do it with pappardelle (long thick pasta is hard to eat out of tupperware) and I'm not an enormous fan of breadcrumbs as a reheated food item because they tend to get soggy. So all I'm doing for this is browning and braising the meat, frying the eggplant, cooking down the braising liquid, and folding it all together with the sour cream and herbs. "All" I'm doing... hahahaha.

Two tiny modifications: I didn't buy chives because I forgot to put them on my shopping list! Oops! Also this is super minor, but I don't peel the eggplant. It's a fussy step, and I like the taste of eggplant skin, and I also like the eggplant to hold its shape a bit in the ragu. Personal preference!

Oh my goodness, it is all so worth it. This dang ragu.

Here's the nutritional breakdown from Fitbit...

I will update this breakdown with pasta down the road when I make the pasta to serve this with.

Groceries I had on hand...

• sugar
• crushed red pepper
• kosher salt
• olive oil
• onion
• carrot
• celery
• chicken broth
• red wine
• red wine vinegar
• sriracha

Groceries I had to buy...

• lamb shanks (1.59lb @ $4.98/lb = $7.91)
• eggplant (1.14lb @ $1.49/lb = $1.70)
• sour cream ($1.99)
• tarragon ($1.29)
• oregano ($1.29)

Total monies spent for the entire recipe: $14.18

Total monies spent for each of these 4 meals....

$3.55 per meal...

Cooking!

This is an ultimate food porn cooking process from start to finish. The lamb shanks browning, the way the meat has pulled away from the bone when the pot comes out of the oven, the fried eggplant. It's all pretty much heaven. It's also fundamentally pretty simple, just takes a while - hence the prepping and freezing now.

Here are the photos....

I honestly have been looking at the calendar trying to figure out when to maximize the joy of this ragu. But I can't decide! It's something I can't solve ahead of time! I will follow my heart when the time comes that I want this more than anything in the world.