Artichokes.

Most of you know my love for asparagus. There is no other vegetable that I love as much as that pretty green stalk of goodness.

But, another green veggie does come close. It's the artichoke.

In fact, I love the artichoke so much, I have this hanging in my kitchen:

(Carciofo is Italian for artichoke. I had to look it up after I bought it.)

While I do love throwing a can of artichoke hearts into pastas and other recipes, my favorite way to eat artichokes is to simply steam them.

Artichokes can be kind of pricey, depending on the time of year you buy them. I bought the artichokes pictured in this post for $1 a piece!!!! That is quite the deal.

I realize that artichokes seem to be an intimidating vegetable. Yes, each of those leaves have a little prickle at the end that can be painful, but you can always just snip off all the tips. But, I promise you, this is a delicious and easy side dish for any meal.
Take the artichokes and put them in a steamer. You can always boil them too, but we always steam ours. We steam ours for 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of the artichokes. Smaller ones only need about 30 minutes, but huge ones might need 45 minutes until they're tender.
We ate our artichoke with meatloaf. Artichokes are surprisingly filling, so when we have them, it's our only side dish.
All you do is take off each leaf...
dip it into the dipping sauce of your choice (we either have hollandaise sauce or melted butter with garlic powder and garlic sauce mixed in with the butter) (and, yes, that's my multi-vitamin)...
and then use your bottom teeth to get the artichoke "meat" off of the leaf.

Elisabeth is showing how she got all the white meat off the leaf.
Julia is too young to properly eat artichokes, but she felt left out and asked me to take a picture of her eating an apple.
Once you've eaten all of the leaves, then you're ready to eat the artichoke heart!
You take off all the little leaves that are left.
See all those pretty hairs? Those are called the artichoke's choke. It is called that because if you ate those pretty little hairs, you would...choke. It's pretty self explanatory.
So, take a knife and get off all those prickly hairs.


This is the heart. And it is the best part.
You can eat the whole thing once the choke is off.
I dip it in the sauce. Mmmm....
Elisabeth started eating artichokes with us when she was about 4. Now we have to buy her her own because she was stealing all of ours and there's nothing I hate more than someone stealing my vegetables.

Sweet Potato Casserole

It's officially fall!!

Which means, it's time for soups and stews and...

SWEET POTATOES!

I love sweet potatoes. I remember only eating them at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners when I was little and then having to wait an entire year before getting to eat them again.

No more! I made this last week the same night I made my Gingery Apple Pie for some of our friends. They were a hit and, while I do plan on making them for Thanksgiving this year, I will be making them even on non-holiday dinners.

The ingredients:

2 lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped; 3/4 C. sugar; 1/4 C. evaporated low-fat milk; 3 Tbsp. butter, melted; 1/2 tsp. salt; 1 tsp. vanilla extract; 2 large eggs; 1/3 C. flour; 2/3 C. brown sugar; 1/8 tsp. salt; 2 Tbsp. melted butter; 1/2 C. chopped pecans or almonds. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Okay, let's start with those sweet potatoes.

Peel them. Then stare at their perfectly autumn-y orange color. Chop them into big chunks.
Throw them into a large pot of boiling water. Boil for about 5 minutes, then turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
Drain the potato chunks and throw them into a mixing bowl.
Add the sugar...
the evaporated milk (and please make sure you only use 1/4 C. of it. I just noticed that part when I was posting this. Using the whole can would explain why my potatoes were candy like in sweetness...we still ate them all...)...
the salt...
the vanilla...
and the 3 Tbsp. of melted butter.
Mix at a medium speed until smooth.
Add the two eggs and mix until they are blended. Pour the potatoes into a greased 9x13 baking dish.
Now make the topping by mixing the flour, brown sugar, and 1/8 tsp. of salt.
Once the dry ingredients are mixed, add the remaining melted butter and whisk together. Pour the topping over the potatoes as evenly as possible.
Then sprinkle the nuts on top.
Bake for 25 minutes. Then, taking the casserole out for a minute, turn the oven to broil. Once the oven's at a broil, allow the sweet potatoes to cook for 45 seconds until the top is bubbly. Let it cool for 10 minutes before serving so no one burns the roofs of their mouths.

Mmm....

We ate ours with grilled pork chops, salad and a fantastic potato salad that our friends brought to eat with dinner. And, of course, we had apple pie for dessert.

The potatoes were delicious! It was like eating a candy vegetable, which I now realize is because I added the whole can of evaporated milk instead of just the 1/4 C. But, I'll remember that for next time. Elisabeth deemed them the best sweet potatoes ever. Our friends loved them too and asked for the recipe.

So, whip up a batch for Thanksgiving, but I definitely recommend trying them out on a non-holiday dinner too!!!

Enjoy!

Crispy Potato-Parmesan Galette

I realize that I post a lot of potato recipes.

But, I like potatoes. They're cheap. And so versatile. And cheap.

Do you all love potatoes as much as me or do you think I'm some sort of spud nerd?

Don't answer that.

This recipe does take a bit of time, but is definitely worth it!

The ingredients:

3/4 tsp. kosher salt; 1/4 tsp. black pepper; 1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg; 5 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted; 3 1/2 lbs. (about 5ish) russet or yukon gold potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced (1/8-inch); 1/2 C. grated parmesan cheese. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix the salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Take your potatoes and peel them. You will notice in the ingredients picture above that I used both russet and yukon gold potatoes. I like to live dangerously.
Slice the potatoes thinly. I do not own a mandolin, so I had to just use my knife and my very poor judgement in measurement to get my potatoes thinly sliced.
This is how thin I was going for. Most of them were about this size. Some were a tad thicker. Some were a tad thinner. I'm not claiming to be perfect, people!
Take two Tbsp. of the butter and melt them on medium heat in a large, oven-proof skillet.
Take your sliced potatoes and make a single layer in the pan.
Then make a second single layer on top.
Sprinkle with half of the spices and half of the remaining butter. Top it with 2 Tbsp. of parmesan making sure not to get the cheese too close to the edge of the potatoes. You don't want to burn the cheese. It smells terrible.
Repeat the process. Let them cook 3 minutes on the stove top, shaking the pan occasionally to make sure the potatoes aren't sticking.
After 3 minutes, cover the pan with something that is also oven proof. I used foil because I don't have a lid big enough that could also go in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes.
After 25 minutes, remove the cover, give the pan a little shake, and then put it back in the oven to bake for another 20-25 minutes.
Take a spatula and remove the potatoes from the skillet to a platter. Look how perfectly golden they are!!
We ate ours with steak and grilled zucchini.
The potatoes were delicious! They were cripsy and cheesy and just salty enough. Julia wouldn't touch them (she's 2 and is starting to declare she doesn't like things by just looking at them...fun), but the rest of us found them wonderful! And, it made quite a bit, so we had leftovers that heated up very well. It's a definite potato side that I will be making again. It's a new favorite!!

Enjoy!

Roasted Asparagus.

Ah, asparagus. The vegetable love of my life.

Do you know that I spent almost 18 years of my life not knowing the beautiful deliciousness that is asparagus? It's true! I didn't have asparagus until I started dating Evan. I was eating dinner at his house one night and, as was becoming tradition, his mom served a food I was unfamiliar with.

Roasted asparagus.

Here's how meals went at Evan's house when we were dating:
A new food I had never seen, smelled or tasted before would be on the table. I would avoid putting the food on my plate. Evan's mom would see the food absent on my plate. Evan's mom would herself put the food on my plate and stare at me till I ate it. I would eat it because I was scared not to. (Matt, Kyle's husband, was a pro at avoiding eating any food he didn't want. When he and Kyle were dating, during one of the first meals I ate with him there, he simply picked Jana up and placed her on the porch and locked all the doors when she tried to make him eat something green. A very common place tradition for him, I would soon learn.)

True stories. This is how I became acquainted with such lovely foods as brussel sprouts, couscous, and asparagus.

Roasting asparagus is my absolute favorite way to eat it. I will show you the perfect way to cook it.

First you break the asparagus at the base. A trick I learned recently, was to bend the asparagus at the end and the tough part will naturally break off.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lay the asparagus on a cooking sheet.
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Now, you will need some olive oil and kosher salt.

Take the olive oil and drizzle it over the asparagus, like so.

Then take a good amount of kosher salt (like what I have in my hand) and sprinkle it on the asparagus. Remember, kosher salt is more forgiving, so using a lot won't make it too salty. Don't use that much of table salt. It would be toooooo much.

Here is what it looks like before you put it in the oven. Let it cook for about 20 minutes. Check on it, because you don't want it to burn (although, I won't lie, I will still eat it burned because I love it so).

Here's what it looks like when it's finished. The ends of the asparagus should be slightly dark, but the insides will still be juicy and soft!

Oh my goodness, how delicious does this look?!?!


We ate ours as a side to our Lasagna Rollups, but, honestly, I find it a suitable side for anything. Even cereal. I joke. Kind of.


Here's my only problem with asparagus--my children like it just as much as I do. In fact, Julia was eating just as much as me at this meal. I was so very upset. I almost wish I hadn't introduced them to asparagus so that I can eat all of it. But, I am a kind, good hearted mother, who wants my children to be exposed to such fabulous vegetables. So, I will just have to suck it up and buy more.

(Oh, and for those of you who are unaware, asparagus can be a bit potent later....like when you have to tinkle later in the day. I'm just warning you that you may smell something. I don't (because 15% of people do not smell the results of eating asparagus, so I thought Evan was insane when he told me this tid bit of information the first time I ate it), but it really is true.