I hate to be a bore with all my constant harping about “oh, summer food is so awesome” “I love all the fresh produce and light, flavorful combinations” and “why is this ridiculous bounty so delicious?”
Yeah, I’m like a broken record. But who gives a crap; it’s all true. So in my continuing saga of scrumptious summeriness, I’m cooking up two easy but awesome dishes: braised artichoke fettuccine and an heirloom tomato salad with blue cheese and celery.
I know, I know only one is technically cooking - aren’t you special.
I started the pasta by peeling down three artichokes until I got down to the tender hearts including most of the stems sans skin. After slicing them into quarter inch segments and giving them a dip is some water acidulated with lemon juice, I dried them off and started to sauté them in some butter and olive oil.
After they started browning up nicely (oh, ten minutes or so), I added some white wine and veggie stock and let the liquid reduce and the artichokes braise for about another twenty minutes.
Meanwhile, I boiled off some yummy fettuccine until it was just shy of al dente. Then I added it in with the ‘chokes with a couple of pinches of red pepper to let it finish cooking through and absorb all the tastiness.
Finish it off with a handful of grated parm and some chopped flat leaf parsley and you’re dealing with some seriously edible eats.
And the salad’s just as easy. I jacked this particular recipe from the August 2003 issue of Bon Appétit.
Basically it’s just sliced tomatoes (whatever type you can get that are freshest and ripest) with crumbled blue cheese and thin sliced red onion, celery, and scallions. Drizzle the whole mixed up business with some olive oil and salt and pepper and it’s definitely a nice refreshing summer dish.
You can either serve it straight up by itself or pile it up on some grilled bread rubbed with fresh garlic. Either way, I’m pretty sure you’ll find it hard to stop eating.
Happy 4th to all you ‘mericans out there; to every one else I’ll just give a shout out to independence in general. Hope you’re not taking it for granted.
-L. Pants
