Artichoke Time!
Hurrah - it's that time of year again when delicious, missed vegetables are coming back into season. One of our favorites is the artichoke - a giant and dangerous-looking thistle we figure the first humans who tried to eat them must have been pretty hungry. Oh, but what a find!
Normally we are very lazy with our artichokes. They are a fairly high-maintenance veggie. A seemingly huge portion is waste. So the quickest thing is to steam and then eat leisurely peeling off leaf by leaf and dipping into some sinful goodness often mayonnaise-based dip.
However, a bunch of baby artichokes arrived at our doorstep, thus we were inclined to try something different. Now I keep reading that "baby artichokes" have no choke, but I have yet to encounter a choke-free 'choke. Heh. But the chokes on these were very small and easy to remove once the top was cut off and they were cut in half. The outer petals are removed and the stem is peeled with a vegetable peeler. It wasn't really that much work.
Then we sauted them along with some leeks (also from the P.O. box) and garlic in a little olive oil. Steamed briefly with a splash of home-made chicken stock (never use store bought - it's all salt!) and fresh lemon juice, and then tossed atop al dente pasta. We tricked it out with some lemon zest, home-made bread crumbs, and parmesan.
The result was lovely. Delicious, satisfying, and pretty.
Normally we are very lazy with our artichokes. They are a fairly high-maintenance veggie. A seemingly huge portion is waste. So the quickest thing is to steam and then eat leisurely peeling off leaf by leaf and dipping into some sinful goodness often mayonnaise-based dip.
However, a bunch of baby artichokes arrived at our doorstep, thus we were inclined to try something different. Now I keep reading that "baby artichokes" have no choke, but I have yet to encounter a choke-free 'choke. Heh. But the chokes on these were very small and easy to remove once the top was cut off and they were cut in half. The outer petals are removed and the stem is peeled with a vegetable peeler. It wasn't really that much work.
Then we sauted them along with some leeks (also from the P.O. box) and garlic in a little olive oil. Steamed briefly with a splash of home-made chicken stock (never use store bought - it's all salt!) and fresh lemon juice, and then tossed atop al dente pasta. We tricked it out with some lemon zest, home-made bread crumbs, and parmesan.
The result was lovely. Delicious, satisfying, and pretty.
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