Delicious Disaster

The dinner plans called for salad with artichokes from our plant on the side, with dippings pre-prepared.

What could possibly go wrong? OH, I have 2 ideas:

1. The Aphids love the artichokes. We have not beaten them back. The neem oil is insufficient. We may have to cut all fruit, aggressively wash the plant and treat with soapy water, or garlic water, or serious chemicals, depending on who we listen to. Regardless, despite our harvest, we did not have 2 healthy non-bugg-ified artichokes for dinner. We had one.

2. The gorgeous romaine lettuce I bought at Draegers when Arvay was here? Yeah, it molded. And not a little bit. Think, "wow, that looks like cotton candy on the side of that lettuce... that is so weird..."

So, instead, I boiled the one remaining artichoke in onion cuttings and a last minute addition of olive oil, salt and black pepper for 40 minutes, then added Quinoa (which E had never had, and proclaimed, "weird, but oddly good") and the remaining sauces we used for dipping the artichokes when Arvay was here (read: mainly mustards and butter).

At the end of the day, it was quite good. And it tasted healthy. So, if you get a chance, enjoy:


-1 cup red quinoa
-1 artichoke, top cut off, washed
-4 cups water (or more)
-2 T salt (or so)
-2 T black pepper (or so)
-4 T mixed butter, lemon juice, and mustards

1. Boil artichoke in water for 40 minutes. Add olive oil to artichoke at 20 minutes or so.
2. Add quinoa, salt, pepper to water and continue to cook for 10 minutes.
3. Add butter, lemon juice & mustard mix and boil remaining liquids from the quinoa
4. Serve 2 bowls of quinoa, each topped in 1/2 of the split, cooked artichoke (contrary to what many cookbooks will tell you -- artichokes from a plant often need to be boiled/steamed for 1 hour +).