No choking here!

One of the kids new favorite dinnertime vegetables - artichokes!

Hard to imagine, but some nicely sauteed and steamed artichokes, dipped in some garlic butter, are now one of their favorite things!

So here's how I make them:

Cut the tops of the chokes and snip off any remaining 'pokies' on the leaves.


Now cut them in half and scoop out the 'fur' - this is relatively easy, but also not entirely necessary. I do it to avoid any unnecessary fur consumption later.

Melt some butter in a pan and add some fresh garlic. Heat enough to get the garlic infused into the butter and add the artichokes.

Saute for about 5 minutes on each side.

Add some water and cover and steam until artichokes are tender (15 - 20 minutes).

Melt some additional butter with garlic for dipping.

To eat, simply peel leaves off one by one and scrap out the small amount of 'meat' at the base of the leaf - this portion of the leaf can be dipped into the garlic butter (or mayo or a mustard sauce) before 'scrapping'.

The kids love these, and even the youngest, at only 2 years old, knows how to scrape out the 'meat' without eating the rest of the leaf.

Here's the stack of discarded leaves from just my two older yahoos!

Enjoy!

ribs and fries

One of our new summertime favorites!

Pork spareribs...SO yummy, and really SO easy to make! We have them with relative frequency, particularly when they are on sale! My kids love them so much, one rack is barely enough.

Here's how I make them:

I start with my rack(s) of ribs, some ground black pepper and what we refer to as "Special Salt" in our house - a.k.a. Lawry's Seasoned Salt.


Sprinkle ribs with Special Salt and then Ground Pepper. (You can reverse this order! :) ) Also, if you like things with a 'kick' add more black pepper.


Rub slightly.

Put onto a cookie sheet (I always cover mine with foil cause then washing, which I DESPISE, is much easier). You can see here with two racks, I use my broiler pan for one - with the bottom layer covered with foil for that 'easier clean up' idea.

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, sometimes a bit more. This is essentially cooking the ribs completely, but nice and slowly. This can be done much earlier in the day than the meal you intend to ingest it for.

When you're getting ready to eat, heat the grill to low and throw the ribs on there. Grill enough to completely heat through and infuse the ribs with 'grilling flavors'.

Look how yummy they look when they're done! Cut apart and serve!


To help make this meal complete, I frequently make one of my favorites - Sweet Potato Fries. While not a favorite of the kids, they can be cooked in tandem with regular potato fries, which are a favorite of kids (particularly when a big bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch is handy).

Start by peeling some Sweet Potatoes and slicing them into fry-like bite-size pieces. Throw them into a large ziploc bag and drizzle in some olive oil (not too much!) and some salt and pepper. Shake to coat.


I always cook my fries on my Pampered Chef stoneware as opposed to a regular metal cookie sheet. It helps the moisture evaporate better and can give them a bit more of cooked outer coating (I would not say that they really ever get crispy because I cook so many at a time...but if I actually spread them out more, they would crisp much better on the stoneware. (This picture is deceiving, because usually I have twice as many on the pan at one time!)

The fries will bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, depending on how many you have in there, and I monitor them and try to flip them at least once while cooking.

How delicious!!! I could eat a million of these....really.