Roasted Artichokes with Lemon & Garlic

We've been eating lots of artichokes from our garden lately.  I steamed the first and second harvests and we ate them with a lemon aioli.  The third set was the smallest and I decided to roast them with lemon and garlic.  I've never eaten artichokes this way but I was inspired by a Sunset Magazine recipe and they were delicious.  

Growing Artichokes

Last year we planted a perennial artichoke plant and this year we harvested 9 tender delicious artichokes.  Annual plants will produce the first year but you'll need to plant them each year.  I think it's worth the wait.

For those of you not familiar with the artichoke, it's actually the flower bud of a perennial thistle in the sunflower family, native to the Mediterranean and Canary Islands.  They were first written about by greek philosophers around 300 B.C.  They were brought to Louisiana by the French immigrants in the early 1800's and to California by the Spanish immigrants.  Today, 100% of the commercial crop in the United States is produced in California.

Happy Blog Birthday

June is the birth month for My Recession Kitchen.  I started this blog three years ago when I was unemployed and wanted to keep busy.  I also wanted a way to document my recipes for my daughter, T.C. who is admittedly, kitchen challenged.  She used to keep shoes in her little NYC oven.  

Daring Bakers' Challenge: Challah

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted - Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah!  Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

Orange Bundt Cake with Chocolate Icing

I’ve been experimenting with Bundt cake recipes lately.  I started with a recipe for a chocolate Bundt cake from the women at the Post Punk Kitchen.  Their recipes rarely fail me and this one was no exception.  I made their cake and topped it with a coffee icing. It was perfect for one of several family gatherings last weekend.  My brother said it reminded him of the Colonial Donuts he ate in the 70’s.  

Quinoa Spinach Bake

Quinoa is actually not a grain but a seed, like amaranth and buckwheat.  It’s called a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal because it’s not a member of the grass family.  It’s closely related to beets, spinach and tumbleweeds.  It’s extremely popular right now because it’s such a powerhouse of nutrition.  Quinoa is a complete protein, which means it contains all eight essential amino acids, usually found only in animal products.  It’s also high in protein, 18%, compared to brown rice which has only 5% protein.  It’s high in fiber, phosphorus, magnesium, and iron and it’s gluten free and cooks in less than 15 minutes. What’s not to like?  Quinoa should be a part of your diet, especially if you’re trying to cut down on animal products.  Most mornings, I cook quinoa flakes as a hot cereal for breakfast and top it with raisins, banana and cinnamon.

Cauliflower Tagine

We’re harvesting the biggest cauliflowers we’ve ever grown.  Big white, perfectly formed cauliflowers.  My usual fallback recipe is my creamy cauliflower and carrot soup, but with the warm weather and the beauty of this vegetable, I didn’t want to puree the thing beyond recognition.  So, I turned to the internet to find a new cauliflower recipe and actually found two that sounded tasty.  The first one was a roasted cauliflower dish that required ingredients I didn’t have on hand so I turned to the second one, Cauliflower Tagine.  This North African spiced dish is a wonderful combination of cumin, ginger, bay and cinnamon with a little lemon and cilantro mixed in.  It will probably become a new “go to” recipe for cauliflower.