Minimalist Artichoke...

Artichoke braised in butter and lemon

with a bit of grilled steak.

"Minimalist Artichoke," sounds like an artwork or something, doesn't it?  I cooked this big beautiful artichoke using Mark Bittman's, aka "The Minimalist," method.  I love Bittman's approach to food, few ingredients and simple preparation that brings out the most in whatever is being prepared.  If you aren't familiar with him, I suggest you get yourself right over to The New York Times and check him out.

Braised Artichokes

4 medium artichokes (I used 1 huge one)

4 tbs, butter (I used 2)

chicken stock, as needed Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
Zest and juice of 1 lemon (I used 1 sliced lemon)

 Cut each of the artichokes in half; remove the toughest outer leaves, use a spoon to remove the choke, and trim the bottom.  Put 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. When it melts and foam subsides, add artichokes, cut side down. Cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add stock (it should come about halfway up the sides of the artichokes), bring to a boil, and cover; turn heat to medium-low. Cook for about 20 minutes or until tender, checking every 5 or 10 minutes to make sure there is enough liquid in the pan, adding more stock if necessary. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and transfer artichokes to serving platter.  Raise heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to a sauce. Stir in lemon zest and juice and remaining tablespoon butter; taste and adjust seasoning. Serve artichokes drizzled with sauce.

I added the sliced lemon to the stock when I was simmering the artichoke (I love lemony flavor), and increased the cooking time for my over-sized thistle.  I think this recipe would be amazing using the little baby artichokes that you can eat whole. Make sure you have some crusty bread handy to sop up any of the juices left on your plate (I had steak and the lemon butter sauce on my plate, oh my :).

That's a darn good (turkey) burger...

 These don't even look like turkey burgers, do they?

The June issue of Food and Wine magazine is full of grilling recipes that I will be trying out this summer.  The first up was an Asian inspired chicken burger with a spicy peanut sauce...I had a pound of ground turkey on hand, and as I usually sub ground turkey for beef, it was a natural sub for chicken.  Ben is not usually a huge fan of turkey burgers, saying that they tend to be dry and tasteless, but this one was a hit and he wanted seconds!  The little guy raved as well and made me promise to make them again, and I most certainly will.  A natural with this was an Asain slaw inspired by one I saw not too long ago on Sandi's blog, A New York Foodie.  Give them both a try...

Asian Turkey Burger with Provolone on Ciabatta,

Asian Slaw, and Home Fries

My first award...

This is too cool...I opened up  my blog this morning to do a new post and found that I had won my first blog award!  This is the Happy 101 award given to me by Sandi at A New York Foodie.  I want to send a big thank you Sandi's way :)  The purpose of these awards is to show appreciation for our fellow bloggers, and recognize the blogs that we keep coming back to; as such, this award comes with a few stipulations:

The rules of accepting this award are as follows:
-Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
-Pass the award onto 10 bloggers.
- Link the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
-Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.
-Lists things that make you happy.

Things that make me happy

1. My husband and children, they mean the world to me...

2. My friends, the good ones are hard to come by and truly precious...

3. Good food...making it, and most importantly, eating it...

4. Good books of all sorts...

5. My little corgi girl Shelby...

6.Making a meaningful contribution to the world, however small...

Now for the Happy 101 Award, I congratulate the following sites:

1.  Chris at Ponderings of a Well Preserved Beauty Queen

2   Kristy at Cakes by Kristy

3.  Ron at Inspire!

4. Dana at Fleur de Sel

5.  Katerina at Daily Adventures in Cooking

6.  Memoria at Mangio de Sola

7.  Elly at elly says ropa!

8.  Bridgette at La Bella Cook

9.  Madelyn at Karma-Free Cooking

10.  Teauna at Tips & Recipes of a Country Housewife

Thanks again Sandi, and I hope everyone takes a moment to check out these blogs, I think you will find the time spent well worth it.

Joining the crowd...

Image courtesy of the Food Network

Everywhere it seems lately, I am seeing the baked shrimp scamp recipe from Ina Garten's latest book, Back to Basics.  I even saw it in last month's issue of Real Simple magazine (without credit given to Ina), and most recently in Sandi's A New York Foodie blog.  If you are looking for more great cooking, plus beautiful food photography, be sure to pay Sandi a visit.

I decided that I needed to make this dish, because, not only did I not want to be left out, but I love shrimp and this looked really, really good.  When I was looking at the recipe, I decided to add some pasta to the mix, but not in the traditional way.  I had a box of DaVinci ravioletti (teeny, tiny cheese ravioli), and thought they would make a fine bed for the scampi.  I only used one pound of shrimp, but left the topping the same (enough for 2 lbs.), figuring that the excess could serve as the sauce for the pasta.  Oh my gosh, was this ever good- I will do this one again, pasta and all!! 

Now, to admit to my scatter brainness- the picture above is from the Food Network site...when I went to upload my beautiful pictures for this post, I found that I had somehow taken them on the video setting (big sigh here).  Not being very techno savvy, I have been unable to figure out how to get screen shots of the pics (I originally wanted to do this post on Monday), hence the borrowed photo.  Just imagine parting that crispy topping the reveal, first the shrimp, then the little pasta pillows bathed in the buttery, lemony goodness...that is what we had, umm, umm, umm!!