It must be in the water

He just keeps tasting things that suddenly don't bother him any more!

Man and I have had a couple of chances to have artichokes since moving here. Neither of us is really crazy about them even though they're pretty ok. We've just always considered it more work than anything.

So the other day the commissary had a pretty good deal on artichokes -- 4/$2. I couldn't pass that up. But what to do with them?

I cut two of them in half (I figured that these were yummy adult food and the kids didn't need their own) and nuked them, cut side down, in a glass 8x8" pan with a half inch of water. I think that next time I'm just going to steam them whole and cut afterward since nuking made the outer leaves somewhat dry.

Anyway, I took the choke out, or rather it sort of fell out when I grabbed the inner leaves and pulled. Then I smeared garlic butter all over the insides of each of them, slapped them on a med-low grill and served them up with aeoli. I would drastically change the aeoli next time since sesame oil ought to be a complement as opposed to a base, and I don't know that Worcestershire sauce goes with it at all. Or maybe we'll just try lemon butter.

We were having an extremely informal dinner of frozen pizza and these artichokes while Man spent some time with a game and the kids sort of grazed. I took a plate over to him and he idly tried a leaf before getting on with the game, but then (ok, get this folks) he paused his game and didn't pick it up again until he was done with his two halves. He said that it was the best artichoke he's ever had in his life. I had to agree with him. That was the sort of reaction he had to our first taste of brined turkey, ciabatta, and his first batch of herbed beef stew after basic training. After a few months of ox tail soup, anything tastes like a dream.

So here's the recipe I used:

Recipe Link.

I wonder what this would taste like with some good balsamic vinegar, or even a light hummus.

Sorry, no pictures because I didn't expect them to be such a hit and they were gone before I could even think of it. Princess got to taste one leaf before I finished mine and had that look kids get when it tasted good and they wished they had jumped on the boat before it was gone.