Artichokes!

I went to the store and found the most beautiful artichokes! You want to look for ones that have nice close, tight leaves like the one below:



First, cut the long stem off but leave enough for it to stand up on, like this:





Get out your spices:



Rinse your artichokes and place them in a pan. Sprinkle a very generous amount of spices all over the top of the artichokes.
Put enough water in the bottom of your pan, to just come to the bottom of the artichoke



Put your lid on, get the water to a nice simmer and let them just simmer for about 2 hours or longer if needed. Leave your pan covered the whole time. To see if your artichokes are done, pull off a leaf and if the bottom meat part is nice and soft you've done it! Yahoo!!! The artichoke should be a nice dark green like this



My kids love to dip their leaves into lemon/butter and I make an aioli sauce. I just put a couple big spoonfuls of mayonnaise in a bowl, a lot of the above spices and then just mix it up. You can add lemon juice, garlic, Tabasco sauce; doesn't anything taste good with mayonnaise?

xo,
Janette

P.S. My Mom used to cook artichokes in a pressure cooker. I have a deep fear of pressure cookers but you should try it. I have cooked them in the microwave but it just wasn't the same. I like the nice slow method on the stove.