Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Cook with a New Food: Artichokes

Time to try out another new food!

I must admit that I already knew I liked to eat artichoke hearts. However, tossing the jarred hearts into a salad and cutting the heart out of a fresh artichoke... those are two very different things.  So today, I tried cooking artichoke hearts, from the raw.

There's a recipe in Make It Paleo that looks delish, so I went and bought some baby artichokes to give it a try.


Aren't they cute?  Or they were, until...


OUCH. Immediate fail. NOT cute!  Who knew that artichoke leaves were so pointy?!?

Some cold water and a bandaid later, I went about cutting the leaves off and chopping out the heart. I honestly have no idea if I did this correctly.  Learning by doing!


I boiled them first to soften, and then sliced and pan-seared them according to the Primal Palate recipe.



Cut up up and added some coconut oil...


Et voila!


Paired them with a little dip that I whipped up. Couldn't even really tell you what's in it (coconut milk? dijon mustard? oil? basil?), but it worked!


It felt like a lot of work and scraps just to get to the heart of these little babies, but they were so tasty that I gobbled them all up.  Moderate success?



Check out Primal Palate and my review of the Make It Paleo cookbook.  
You can find the full recipe here to make it yourself!  

I dare you to eat and cook artichoke hearts!  Whether this or another nutritious addition, remember to eat your vegetables!

Have you ever cooked artichokes, or do you get the jarred or canned varieties?  

Any tips to help make the process simpler and less painful for newbies like myself? 

14 comments:

  1. I have had cooked artichoke hearts before, but never made them on my own :)I would have never guessed that they were prickly!

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  2. I love them---but hadnt ever even considered making for the child!!!

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  3. Those look yummy!! I always forget about these! Gotta try this.

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  4. I love artichokes, too! But I eat them in a much less civilized way!
    I trim the pointy bits with scissors. then cut the top off.
    I place it, top-down on a plate with about 2 tbsp of water. Syran wrap the whole thing, and microwave until cooked!
    Once cooked, I pluck off a leaf at a time and eat those (you do the tooth-scrape to get the meat off). Then the heart!
    Easy peasy. Messy, but delicious!

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  5. Those cooked artichokes look so good! I've never cooked with them myself.

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  6. these look awesome! great blog by the way!!!

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  7. That sounds really good! I have yet to try cooking with artichoke hearts, so you have inspired me!

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  8. Oh yum! I've never cooked artichokes like that!

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  9. I love artichokes, but have never made them myself. They are on my list of intimidating veggies, but this doesn't look all that complicated. Thanks for sharing!

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  10. YUMMMAYYYYY! I adore adore adore artichokes!!! And they're REALLY good for your liver, so keep on eating them!! :) You inspired me to pick some up at the store today! YAY!

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  11. I've only cooked them once, and it was when I was dating this guy, and he asked me to make them for him... and I totally messed it up haha

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  12. Ooh those look delicious! I loooove artichokes, and have always wanted to cook them myself. Someday soon!

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  13. I confess, I've never cooked an artichoke!

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