I Heart Artichoke Hearts

Ain't nothin' low-fat about it... but somehow I don't think you'll regret making this recipe. And aside from the fat content (about six tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter), it's really quite nutritious. This honestly might be one of the tastiest recipes I've ever invented, which is why I'm writing it down while still eating it, so I can remake it for future joy.

And yes, it's another couscous recipe. What can I say - I'm into couscous. It would probably be pretty good over rice or pasta, but using couscous does make it a lot easier to focus on concocting this delectable sauce.

As always, most measurements are approximate and to taste.

Couscous with Artichoke Heart Melange

1/2 c water

1/2 c couscous

~ 6 T extra virgin olive oil

2 T butter

~ 2 1/2 t lemon juice

~ 1 t white wine vinegar

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 medium white onion, diced

~ 1 T diced shallot

~ 1 T dried oregano

~ 1/2 t powdered ginger

~ 1 t fresh basil, chopped

1 can artichoke hearts (unmarinated)

1 can garbanzo beans

~ 2-3 T fresh cilantro, chopped

~ 1/2 c grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

~ 3 T pine nuts

fresh ground black pepper to taste

Prep the garlic, onion, shallot, artichoke hearts, tomatoes and cilantro. Lightly toast the pine nuts.

Bring the water to a boil with a dash of olive oil. Stir in the couscous, cover, remove from heat and let sit while you make the sauce.

Put the tomatoes, cilantro, and pine nuts in a small bowl and douse with a healthy squirt of lemon juice, about 1 tsp. Stir up and set aside while you make the rest of the sauce.

In a cast iron saucepan (preferably cast iron, anyway), heat about 2 Tbs olive oil over medium to medium low heat. Add the garlic, onion, and shallot, and stir to coat with oil. Cook about five minutes until translucent. Add the butter and let it melt.

Add the artichoke hearts, oregano, ginger, basil, and pepper, about 1/2 to 1 tsp lemon juice (start smaller and adjust to taste), and the white wine vinegar, and stir it up. Taste and adjust your spices. Let it simmer for about ten minutes.

Add the garbanzo beans, pour about 2 more Tbs olive oil on there, and do another round of black pepper over top, then stir it up. Taste again and adjust whatever needs adjusting. Reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for about five more minutes.

Get out your favorite serving bowl. Fluff the couscous with a fork and put it in the bowl as your bottom layer. Take the artichoke heart-garbanzo bean sauce and add that as your middle layer. Use the tomato-cilantro-pine nuts as your top layer.

Makes a hearty dinner for two.

Summery pasta salad with roasted red pepper vinaigrette

Am I the only one for whom making a vinaigrette provides an inordinate sense of accomplishment? No? Oh, good.

My best friend and I agreed today that the best recipes are Frankensteined recipes, patched together from a bevy of sources. I will admit quite frankly that the only reason this pasta salad is so tasty is because of this recipe from http://www.smittenkitchen.com/, which is basically the greatest food blog on the face of the planet, and you should immediately desert this particular blog and go over there and lose yourself in a multitude of witty writing, gorgeous photography and incredible recipes.

But when you come back, you might enjoy considering my own pasta salad recipe, which as I say is based on the recipe linked above, but with fewer pretty photos and more shortcuts and artichoke hearts involved. For example, I am, if nothing else, lazy, so rather than buying peas in the pod and shelling them, I bought (organic) frozen peas and threw them in the pot of boiling water when the pasta was almost done cooking.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. The real genius of this recipe (which again I entirely credit to the phenomenally talented Deb) is the roasted red pepper vinaigrette. Smittenkitchen has taught me that it's not necessarily that hard to make a vinaigrette, and that it is almost ridiculously fulfilling. Seriously, I was quoting "Ozymandias" to my dogs, who gave me looks of appropriate confusion and skeptical good-humored tolerance.

Enough with my foodie freakout, though. Have a recipe. Or two, technically. As Deb points out, the vinaigrette would be fabulous on other foods, including salad, and I'm betting crab cakes as well. And you know how I feel about crab cakes.

Summery Pasta Salad with Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette

1 lb pasta shells

1 c organic frozen peas

1/2 c chopped artichoke hearts (marinated or non-marinated, take your pick; I sort of like the non-marinated with this recipe, because it lets the vinaigrette's flavor come through better)

~1 Tbs fresh chives, chopped

Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette, recipe follows

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the pasta, cooking according to the directions on the package. When the pasta has about three minutes left, add the frozen peas to the boiling water. Drain, rinse with cold water, and put into a large serving bowl. Add the chopped artichoke hearts and chives, pour the vinaigrette over all, and stir it up, little darlin'. Devour.

Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette

1 roasted red bell pepper (you can roast a red bell pepper yourself, which takes a really long time, or you can buy red bell peppers already roasted in handy-dandy jars at the supermarket. What a country! Just pull enough roasted pepper out of the jar until it looks like approximately a full bell pepper, maybe a little more.)

1-2 Tbs chopped shallot (one small shallot) (my small shallot turned out to be 2 Tbs, Deb's was 1)

2-4 Tbs red wine vinegar, depending on how much you like red wine vinegar (I used 4 Tbs)

1/4 c olive oil

salt & fresh ground pepper to taste

Use a food processor or blender to puree the bell pepper. Add the rest of the ingredients and puree until smooth. Taste & add more of various ingredients as preferred. : )

Couscous makes life so easy...

I swear, couscous is the lazy vegetarian foodie's best friend. Five minutes to cook - you've gotta love it. The other night, I invented a recipe involving couscous, artichoke hearts and butter beans that turned out rather well. Now let's see if I can get through this post without my beloved cat somehow making me exit the Internet, which is what he did the last time I tried to post this recipe.

One note - I am not so scientific in my spice measurements, tending to do a dash of this, a couple pinches of that, and once or twice around the pot with the salt or pepper grinders. So I've attempted to put approximate teaspoon or tablespoon measurements, but you'll have to judge according to your own taste. Also, we tend to like things a little spicy, so of course a bit of adjustment is a good thing for your own preferences anyway.

Couscous with Artichoke Hearts, Butter Beans and Pine Nuts

1/2 c couscous
1/2 c water
2 t olive oil
1/4 tsp dry mustard powder, if desired

1 can butter beans, rinsed and drained
1 can artichoke hearts in water, drained
1/4 c pine nuts, lightly toasted
2-3 cloves garlic
2 Tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
fresh ground black pepper to taste
fresh ground sea salt to taste
dash of cayenne pepper (~ 1/8 tsp)
pinch of marjoram (~ 1/8 tsp)
healthy pinch of sage (~ 1/4 tsp)
a couple dashes dill weed (~ 1/4 tsp)
lot of basil (~ 1 tsp dried)
whole lot of oregano (~ 2 tsp dried)
1-2 spring onions, sliced (optional)

Mix couscous, water, olive oil and mustard powder (or whatever other spice you prefer) together and put on to boil. As soon as steam starts escaping the pot, remove from heat and let sit at least five minutes. (Fluff the couscous with a fork before serving.)

Heat olive oil several minutes over medium heat, then reduce heat to medium low. Add garlic and crushed red pepper flakes and let simmer til the garlic is golden and smells delicious. Either lightly toast pine nuts in a toaster oven or add to the olive oil to toast. Once you've pulled the couscous off the heat, add the butter beans and artichoke hearts to the olive oil and garlic. Add all the remaining spices, except the salt, and stir it up. Taste the sauce and add salt to taste. Wait until the very end to mix in the spring onions, they are most flavorful uncooked.

Serves two.

Artichoke hearts make everything better.

Seriously. The other day I was going through the index of a cookbook I like pretty well, and discovered that there were no entries under artichokes. Now that just ain't right. I officially think less of that cookbook.

But anyway. Wanted to post two yummy recipes for easy potluck/cookout salads that involve artichoke hearts. One's a spinach dip sure to delight all you vegans and fellow lactose-intolerants out there; it uses pureed beans as creamy goodness instead of cheese or sour cream. The other is pretty much your classic three-bean salad, which I looked at and decided it needed artichoke hearts to really make people happy. Or at least to make ME happy.

The spinach artichoke heart dip comes from the great vegetarian cookbook, "Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites". The three-bean salad one I just kinda made up after reading a few different online recipes & deciding what I wanted; I made it with red wine vinegar, whereas they're often made with cider vinegar, and it was pretty darn tasty.

Spinach Artichoke Heart Dip

5 oz fresh organic spinach, rinsed & stemmed
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
1 1/2 c cooked cannellini beans (or butter beans) (this equals one 15-oz can, drained and rinsed)
1 c chopped scallions
2 T chopped fresh basil
2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, to taste (or seriously, just use reaLemon if you're in a hurry)
5-6 artichoke hearts or bottoms, minced (15-oz can)
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Using only the water that's on the leaves after rinsing, steam the spinach just until wilted, 2-3 minutes. Drain.
In a food processor, puree the spinach, garlic, beans, scallions, basil and 2T of lemon juice until very smooth. Fold in the minced artichoke hearts; add more lemon juice, and the salt and pepper to taste.
Serve chilled or at room temp.

Ann's Super-Easy Deluxe Three-Bean Salad

15 oz can organic kidney beans, rinsed & drained
15 oz can organic green beans, rinsed & drained
15 oz can organic garbanzo beans, rinsed & drained
15 oz can artichoke hearts, chopped
1/2 medium red onion, minced
1/3 c cider or red wine vinegar
1/3 c olive oil
1/3 c sugar
2 T oregano
salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste

Combine beans, artichoke hearts and onion in a large bowl. In a small separate bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil, sugar, and oregano. Drizzle over the beans, add salt and pepper to taste, toss gently and taste again, adding more salt & pepper if needed. Recommended to let chill several hours before serving, so the salad can marinate.

Pasta with Artichoke Hearts and Broccoli

Dinner turned out well tonight. This is a variation on a basic tomato sauce recipe I use semi-regularly. It's fast, healthy, and more importantly, delicious. The sauce is also nice and colorful, and we all know things are better when they look pretty... okay, food is, at least.

Psst... use organic veggies!

Pasta with Artichoke Hearts and Broccoli

1/2 lb chunky pasta, like farfalle

~ 2 T olive oil
1 head broccoli
1 can (14 oz) quartered artichoke hearts (not marinated), drained
2-3 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 med white onion, diced
2 Roma tomatoes, thickly sliced crossways
~ 3 T pinenuts (optional)

(spice measurements are approximate, modify to taste)
1/2 t basil
1/2 t oregano
1/8 t ground mustard
healthy pinch of marjoram
small pinch of thyme
1/8 t cayenne
1/4 t crushed red pepper
1/8 t fresh-ground black pepper

Start the pasta water to boil and put the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-low-ish heat while you prep your veggies. Add the garlic, onion, and spices except black pepper to the olive oil and saute, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts getting translucent around the edges.

Around now, your water should be boiling. Add the pasta, stir, put a steam basket on top, reduce the heat under the pasta to med. low and steam the broccoli about 5 minutes. Rinse the broccoli after you've steamed it and turn the heat back up to med. high on the pasta.

Add the tomatoes to the sauce and use a wooden spoon to crush them as you stir the sauce, to release the juices. Let cook, stirring occasionally, until your pasta's about 3 minutes from being ready. Add the artichoke hearts and broccoli and stir it up. If you're using pinenuts, now's the time to put them in the oven or toaster oven; once toasted, mix with the sauce.

Drain the pasta, top with sauce, serve immediately - with garlic bread, if you have it.

Serves 2