triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Food for the Carnivalous

I worked Thursday, and my wee wifey didn't work thursday night, so we went out for the evening. When we finally got home, I went to bring up Mastercook on her computer, and , not knowing it takes four minute to load all twelve hundred cookbooks, I assumed the program had gotten corrupted again and went to bed without tracking down the recipe I'd planned to post for the Carnival. Even without my contribution, it is of course worth checking out.

Rammer posted detailed instructions on preparing artichokes. I agree with him that the stem should be left fairly long, but ignore most of the other details. Just pull off the first five leaves from the stem, and slice off the very top to remove the worst of the spikyness. Leave the fuzzy choke; it is easy enough to scrape out with a spoon after cooking. The microwave is the way to cook them, but the article he linked left out the most important part. Wrap the described setup tightly with saran wrap. This produces a de facto pressure cooker, which was what we used to cook artichokes in. Before unwrapping, poke the wrap with a fork or knife to vent the superheated steam. Then proceed as Rammer described. This will be our dinner tonite. I might even try a flavored mayonnaise as he suggests, rather than my usual practice of melting butter in lemon juice in the microwave.

Also worth noting: Daily Dave has posted his long-awaited mango-habenero dip. I like stuff where the heat has a creep to it.