Friday Food Lab: Artichokes are Flowers

Over here at the lab we love us some good eating. And we have decided that Fridays are a great day to celebrate the art of cooking.

In related news, fellow Skepchick and Mad Art Lab contributor, Courtney Caldwell has joined me in starting up a new food blog. The new blog is called, Be Vegan Anywhere and tells the tale of a Californian and a Texan navigating their way around their kitchens (and sometimes the world) while we each try our best to make compassionate food choices. We aren’t perfect vegans and we are just learning the art of cooking and how to be vegan but we are doing our best to make rational, compassionate life choices that often overlap into a humanist, skeptical and feminist worldview.

We plan on sharing some of what we learn on BVA with the Skepchick network here on Fridays.

And to kick off this new Fun-Friday-Food-Time series at the lab, I’d like to share a simple, photo filled post on how I like to prepare artichokes.

Please enjoy and have a great weekend!

Artichokes are flowers. That is a thought that often makes me incredibly happy. And this is my very easy to make artichoke recipe.

How to Cook an Artichoke

Artichokes are beautiful flowers but they have little spikes on the end of each petal so you want to trim those spikes off so you don’t poke your fingers when you try to eat them.

Step 1: I usually use a serrated edge knife to saw off the tops and then use kitchen scissors to snip off the edges of the bottom leaves. When you are done the artichoke should look more or less like the one below.

Tip: Rub lemon juice on the cut edges to prevent them from turning brown.

Step 2: Stuff fresh peeled garlic cloves and slices of lemon in amongst some of the leaves.

Each artichoke should look somewhat like this:

Step 3: Steam em!

The steaming process usually takes about 35-40 minutes. When the leaves easily pull off with tongs, you know they are done.

Put em on a plate and serve em with your favorite dipping sauce!

Tip: At my house we have them with a melted vegan-butter and lemon dipping sauce and a Dijon-mustard and vegan-mayo sauce because those ingredients are usually in my fridge and they are also super easy to make.

The Dijon mayo is just 2 parts mayo to one part Dijon mixed together.

The lemon butter is melted butter with some fresh squeezed lemon juice. You can also add some minced garlic or cayenne if you like the butter a bit more spicy.

That’s it!

Now enjoy those delicious vegetable flowers!

*If you have never eaten an artichoke, you eat the soft “meaty” bottoms of each petal or leaf and discard the rest. The “heart” is also prized, which is at the very center of the artichoke near the stem. Cheers!

All photos © Amy Davis Roth