This spread is delicious with pita and/or falafels.
At Thanksgiving, one of our vegetable stores was selling boxes of baby artichokes. We couldn't resist buying them; we love artichoke hearts!
Steam the artichokes til they're tender and then peel away the outer leaves. Sprinkle kosher salt over the draining artichoke hearts, then use tongs to gently place them in a sterilized jar with a nice wide mouth.
Keep the leaves!! They're fabulous with blue cheese dip.
Pour olive oil into the jar. Add peppercorns and a bay leaf and top up with more olive oil.
Seal the jar(s) and process in boiling water for 10 minutes. Once completely cool, check the seal and label. Refrigerate after opening.
Artichoke hearts are not only delicious in the above artichoke/spinach spread, but they are brilliant with mushrooms on pizza.
The pizza toppings here are tomato sauce, mushrooms, thinly sliced red onion, oil-cured black olives, mozzarella cheese, ham, hot pepper flakes and artichoke hearts. (more photos of pizza here)
Baby artichokes are particularly wonderful because there is no choke to worry about. And because they aren't much longer than 2 inches, they take virtually no time to cook.
Drizzle a little olive oil and lemon juice on them just after they're cooked and they absorb it entirely.
