Artichokes deserve to be celebrated because of the amount of work that goes into preparing fresh artichoke hearts.
An artichoke is actually the bud of a thistle, so it is a flower! It is pretty large in size, but the edible portion, the heart, is hidden beneath layers upon layers of petals. The stem is edible too, but first it must be peeled. Eaten raw, it’s tough and bitter. They can be cooked in a variety of different ways.
When you have the opportunity to order fresh artichoke hearts at a restaurant, do it. While you’re eating an artichoke stop to recognize how much work went into revealing the delicious earthy and meaty heart, so good.
For my home cooking I choose the simpler route- Kirkland’s finest marinated artichoke hearts, thanks Costco. It would be nice to say that I prepared fresh artichoke hearts, but I am cooking for one. I don’t need to impress myself, I just want my food to taste good.
My favorite way to enjoy artichokes is a game day Spinach and Artichoke Dip with pita chips. Oh oh oh and spinach and artichoke quiches or spinach and artichoke hand pies!
Can you sense a theme here?
Spinach and Artichoke are my PB&J of vegetables (of course cheese gets honorable mention for the perfect trio). I wanted to highlight artichokes on their day and pair them with spinach for a Spinach faux-pesto and Artichoke served over whole wheat pasta.
I found a recipe for the Spinach faux-pesto and artichoke chicken from food52.com that served as a blueprint…a very loose blueprint for good reason. I choose to omit chicken and serve it over whole wheat pasta.
Before we break this dish down, I have a very important tip about following recipes – NEVER follow a recipe that doesn’t call for salt. THIS RECIPE CALLED FOR ZERO SALT!
I lost faith immediately, so I instead used it for inspiration only.
The recipes faux-pesto called for spinach, parmesan, olive oil, black pepper, and chicken broth…(what in the world?!)
My faux-pesto: 2 cups spinach, 2 Tbsp olive oil, black pepper, white cheddar (I forgot to buy parm), and KOSHER SALT. Chopped it up in a food processor and that became the base.
While I was blitzing my spinach I had a skillet heating to medium heat to create my spinach artichoke mixture. To the hot skillet I added onions. I cooked until they were soft, then added some garlic. The original recipe called for 1 Tbsp of minced garlic…but as the ole saying goes “you measure garlic with your heart,” so I went for 5 cloves. Once the garlic became fragrant I added my roughly chopped artichoke hearts along with spinach mixture.
I gently mixed them all together until everything was heated through.
Plated on top of whole wheat pasta and finished with extra freshly grated cheese.
I really enjoyed the flavors of this dish. The marinated artichoke hearts have a robust flavor and have a sourness that brightened the dish. The spinach and cheese helped mute and balance the strength of flavor from the artichokes. The spinach and cheese became slightly creamy which helped create sauce for the noodles. A simple and inexpensive pasta dish full of flavor that highlighted the artichoke on its day, I’d call this dish a success.
I hope everyone has a happy National Artichoke day, or just a good Tuesday!
Stay messy,
The Okayest Chef
The Okayest Chef 