Artichoke's

Recently, I was introduced to this fabulous vegetable known as the Artichoke. Yes, of course I had heard of an artichoke before. I had even eaten many artichoke hearts in dips or on pizza's. But, I had never ever bought a whole artichoke before until my neighbor Kristi got me turned on to the idea of actually trying to make one. I bought my first set of artichokes from the grocery store and decided to give making them a try. I read the internet for many ideas on how to prepare them, stuff them, dip them and eat them.  Armed with her personal experience and the wealth of information on the internet I gave it a whirl.  What I ended up with was a delicious side dish that my children and I adored.  I think it is great when my kids love something new and to me, the fact that they love an artichoke is even more fabulous!

I have made plenty of artichokes to date and continue to try to find new and exciting ways to eat them.  I make them at least twice a month and the kids devour them every time.  Our favorite way to make them is by stuffing them, boiling them and dipping the petals into drawn butter or olive oil.  I wanted to share my recipe with you in case any of you dare to venture outside of your "side dish box" and give an artichoke a try. 

4 medium artichokes
1 cup of bread crumbs
2-3 Tbsp minced garlic
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 lemon
Olive Oil for drizzling

Cut off the top inch and the bottom stem of your artichoke.  If your artichoke has pointy petals be careful that they do not prick you.  I use a kitchen shears to cut off the tips of all of the outside petals.  Wash the artichoke inside and out by gently separating the petals. 

Make the stuffing by combining the bread crumbs, garlic and parmesan cheese.  Use a spoon to stuff the artichoke by pulling out a petal and putting the bread crumb mixture inside.  I try to stuff each petal of the artichoke layer by layer. 

Rotate the artichoke around and around as you stuff, being sure to not miss any petals.  I put about a teaspoon full of mix into each petal.

Avery is officially the artichoke Queen in our house.  She loves to help me make them and she is just as enthusiastic about them as I am.

You can see in this picture that towards the center of the artichoke the leaves look more whitish/green.  I generally do not stuff these as you will discard them to get to the choke and then to the best part of all, the heart.

After they are all stuffed, I place them into boiling water on the stove.  I use a 4 quart stock pot with 1/4 cup of water and a lemon wedge.  Make sure that your water does not go higher than the bottom leaves of your artichoke otherwise you will get soggy stuffing...ewww!

I squeeze fresh lemon juice over the tops of each artichoke and drizzle them all over with olive oil. 

Place the top on your pot and reduce the heat to simmer for an hour.  Check your water level occasionally to be sure that there is still some in the pot.  You will know that the artichoke is done when you can put a fork into the bottom layer easily.

I serve the artichokes with drawn garlic butter.  To eat your artichoke, you will pull out a leaf and dip the bottom part of it(the part that was attached to the center)into the butter and then slide your teeth along the leaf essentially scraping off the stuffing and the very tip of the leaf.  There is not a lot of meat on an artichoke and at first it may seem futile.  Trust me, you will get the hang of it and if you are anything like me you will be addicted to them in no time.

After you have eaten all of the hearty leaves, you will get to some of the lighter colored leaves.  They will definitely have no meat and may have a purplish coloring to them.  Grab them as a whole, twist clockwise(this can be messy) and they should simply pull out exposing the hairy center known as the choke.  Use a spoon to scoop the hairy part off and you will now be at the very best part of the whole artichoke which is the heart.  I cut mine into quarters, dip into the butter and devour it. 

Voila!  That is it!  A delicious new side dish for everyone to try.  I know that this recipe may not be for everyone, so google artichokes and  trust me you will be surprised about all of the awesome information out there.  If you do try it, please let me know what you thought about all of it!  Happy stuffing!