Artichokes <3 Avery + Sophia

such yum! wow

A little road-weary from the trip home, but inner beauty still shining through in this Farm Wedding filter.

For bigger guys with fully-developed spikes, folks typically do a bunch of trimming. Some is practical (eg spike avoidance) and some is just presentation.

If you want, you can lop off the the top 20% of the artichoke and then trim the base to just where the stem meets the bloom. Trim such that the bottom is flat but don't go overboard and amputate any of the tasty tasty heart.

That said, for little fellows like this, I don't do a damn thing.

cool yah.

If you are fancy you can add a steaming basket. I usually dont. Most artichokes are hearty enough that being dipped a slight into the boiling water at the base has little effect on final outcome.

20 minutes should be plenty for little ones, big guys maybe 30-40. Keep track of the water level given the endurance steaming.

You can check if they're done by attempting to pull off one of the petals 2 or 3 rows in from the base (outermost leaves are always tough to get off so they can trigger a false negative). The petal should slip out smoothly, and when you nibble at the base of the petal, the soft veggie flesh should glide off easily as well. If either removing or eating petal puts up a fight, give the steaming a little more time. Overcooking is no great risk, the artichokes will just get a little more brown and not as pretty.

I like to pair with olive oil and salt if I'm feeling more precious, or just a large volume of melted butter when I want to go in deep. The French have been known to do things involving mayo.

and enjoy!