Wednesday, May 5, 2010

For the Love of Artichokes!


If you were to ask my sweet little Ethan Kip
what his favorite thing to have for dinner is, it would be Artichokes

Our family LOVES Artichokes SO much!
In fact, I just fixed up Artichokes last weekend and Ethan screamed at the top of his lungs
"Artichokes...YAY ARTICHOKES"!!

(Tracy had to come running in to make sure everything is okay, because from outside, it sounded like something was wrong).
I had one excited kid on my hands that couldn't wait until dinner.

I have very much enjoyed

participating in the Bountiful Basket service that we have available for the time being. It is always like Christmas each Saturday when we go and pick up our produce and so exciting to see what yummy things we get to eat during the next week.
Every time Tracy and I walk in the door with our produce, the kids are running and pulling the bags out of our hands excited to see what we got as well.

I'm sad that the only two times we have not purchased a basket (because we were going to be out of town) they had
4 Artichokes in them
It makes me even more sad that many Artichokes have gone to waste because people don't know what to do with this silly little thing called an Artichoke.

So, besides documenting FUN things
about our family so I can look back in years to come and remember our FUN times we had together as a family,

I thought I'd share some helpful tips on
how you deal with this yummy thing called an
Artichoke












Happiness is sitting around the dinner table,
dipping Artichoke leaves in butter,
pulling Artichoke leaves through your teeth and
laughing and talking about your day, or
planning out your weekend and
getting SO excited when you are all done with your leaves
because mom and dad will peel away
all of the hairy and interesting inner leaves
and then we all get to savor and enjoy our
OWN
Artichoke heart together!
One of our all time Favorite Family Meals!!

(The men in my life are going to be SO excited when they come home from school/work and find out that we're having
Artichokes and Green Smoothies
for dinner tonight
!)

In Ethan's opinion,
"Life just doesn't get any better than this"!!

7 comments:

Welcome to the Garden of Egan said...

Our family LOVES artichokes! Unfortunately we dip in butter.

I think it's awesome that you have such a cutie as Ethan.
I also think it's hilarious that you take pics of the family eating them.

You make me laugh and smile!!!!

Ann Marie said...

We are an artichoke family as well!

My MIL just did her bountiful basket.. and brought us both artichokes they received! So fun for us!

I grew up choosing them over candy bars.. and we would all fight over who got the biggest piece of heart.. since we couldn't afford to buy one for each individual.. so fun!

I am surprised.. when we cut them.. we cut the stem off.. about 1/4 th of the top off.. and then take scissors and trim off all of the tips of each leaf before steaming.

~ I also make about 12 dishes using artichokes! We love them here!

Connie said...

I must admit, I have never cooked an artichoke! Thanks for the lesson.
That Ethan is a cutie! You've done well to have such good eaters!

wileyfamilyof5 said...

We love artichokes. My husband prefers dipping in Mayo. I wish we had bountiful baskets out here. I was wondering do you have to volunteer any time to participate??

CB said...

Mmmmm we are artichoke lovers as well!! Soooooo good!!!
Like Ann Marie I also have many many recipes that I also use artichokes in and I also put them on pizza - ohhh makes my mouth water!!

Ethan is so cute - it cracks me up that he loves artichokes enough to scream haha

Candace said...

We had G & G Smith over the other night for artichokes. Mark hates them. I left the stems a little too long. I couldn't quite remember. Joel's mom used to cook them with the leaf side down in the water. mmmmmmm they are so yummy! Great Post!

CreativeMish said...

Yum! I've got to buy some of these. I have fun Family memories of my kids when they were younger eating these. It always seemed to be an exciting adventure for them. It must be the playing with your food and getting to eating..