I went to the market and was thrilled to see that they had beautiful artichokes. I have always loved artichokes. While growing-up my mom would make them often by stuffing the leaves with garlic and putting them in a pot of water with lemon slices to cook. She had the technique mastered. I have never been consistent making them that way. Whenever I try it is so hit and miss, coming out either mushy or crunchy.
A few months back my sister and her family came over for dinner while my parents were in town and she brought artichokes to add to the meal. The way she made them was ingenious, easy, and produced a wonderful result.
And so here you have it…
INGREDIENTS 4 Artichokes 2-3 Lemon slices (you will want 3-4 slices per artichoke) 6-8 Garlic cloves sliced Olive oil to drizzle Celtic or Himilayan salt Pepper Foil
Preheat the oven to 425˚.
Wash and trim the artichokes.
Make the foil beds for each artichoke. You will need two squares for each artichoke (they may burn if you only use one layer).
Run an artichoke under water and quickly move it onto the foil bed. You want to maintain the moisture so the artichoke will steam inside the foil. There should be a small pool of water on the foil. I tend to do all of the artichokes at one time, kind of an assembly line style.
Drizzle each artichoke with olive oil.
Sprinkle some salt, and crack some pepper on top. Next, place some garlic on top of the artichokes (you can even squish some into the leaves for extra garlicky goodness).
Top with lemon slices.
Fold the foil tightly over each artichoke.
Put the foil wrapped artichokes on a cookie sheet or inside a pan and place them in the preheated oven. Small artichokes tend to take 60 minutes, medium to large 1 hour and fifteen minutes, and jumbo can take up to 1 hour and 30 minutes.
When you take them out of the oven allow them to cool in the foil. Once they have cooled enough for you to handle them, unwrap the foil, and pull out the center leaves.
You will notice that there are tiny hairs in the middle above the heart of the artichoke. Clean the hair out of the choke with a spoon (being careful to leave as much of the heart as possible…don’t scrape the good stuff out).
You can serve the artichokes immediately after cleaning or put them in the fridge where they will last for atleast 4 days.
I serve my artichokes with dairy free ranch dressing (I’ll post my recipe at a later date), or I’ll make a creamy lemon pepper dip. They are so yummy!
For a printable version of this recipe click here
ooo – we love artichokes – I’ll have to try this recipe. We usually steam but I’d like to try baking in the foil beds 😉
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