Artichoke Cooking Simplified

Last weekend I bought one huge artichoke at the grocery store because it was on sale for $2. I did not want to do anything fancy, because I needed to start on my Daring Bakers Challenge (check back on Monday to see what it was)...and so I did something very very very simple!

After washing the artichoke, I cut off one inch from the top, removed a few leaves from the bottom, trimmed the stem and wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap. I then microwaved it for 10 minutes.

While the artichoke was in the microwave, I melted a bit of butter and added some lemon zest and microplane-d garlic to it. If you don't have a microplane (go out and buy one!!!), you can just very finely mince your garlic.




The photograph in the lower right corner above is of the cooked artichoke. After removing the artichoke from the plastic wrap (be really careful because the steam is insanely hot!), just pluck the leaves off and dip them in butter and then suck on the bottom part (the top part of the leaves is not really edible). This is one superb snack!



After you are done eating all the leaves, you'll be left with what you see on the left ;)
Simply remove the "fibers" with a spoon, and then you can eat the rest of the artichoke!