The great artichoke experiment..

If you ever hear me saying that I prefer a machine-processed, canned item more than slaving for hours and recreating it from scratch, just call the looney bin and tell them to pick me up, on the double!! Except this time.....

OK, I'll confess. I can never, never walk by a new item in the grocery aisle and NOT pick it up. I mean, how can anyone?? Afterall, they beckon you so with all their novelty. So, when I saw this never-before-seen package of baby artichokes in my neighbourhood grocery store, I unconciously (I swear!) picked it up. As I meandered around the store, picking up the other items that were on the list, I pondered over what I could make from them.

I had heard that artichokes were a bit tedious to work with. Also, they have sharp thorns which doesn't really make loving them any easier. So, I was not very ambitious. There are a number of fancy recipes out there on the net like artichokes stuffed with shrimp etc or baked artichokes. But, I just decided to go the easy saute recipe that was on the inside of the box (Now, if they make it so easy, how could I not be lured into buying them?!).

So, I set upon the 12 baby artichokes in the box. Here is the thing with these vegetables - they are like spinach; start with a mountain, you end up a small collection of pebbles. After peeling away the tough outer leaves (and being poked innumerable times!) till the yellow, soft ones were visible, the palm sized artichokes shrunk to 3/4 inch edible pieces.

The recipe was really simple. An onion, salt, pepper, herb de provence and the halved artichoke hearts all sauteed together for a few minutes and it was done. I was looking forward to tasting them. They looked good, just like the drained ones from the can actually. So I was all anticipation.

But here was the let down. I have to regretfully acknowledge that these home sauteed artichoke hearts tasted not much better than the bottled or canned ones. And, well, frankly, they are a whole lot more effort. Sighhh....

Anyway, I used these sauteed artichokes as topping for my home made pizza, which, by the way was very, very good, thank God! But, that's a story for another day...

So, that is my artichoke story. Next time, I will firmly say NO, no matter how appealing they make it for me to buy fresh artichokes.