Artichokes - the first produce of the season

We recently made a netted veggie garden and planted some veggies but our garden is full of surprises and we already have our first produce of the summer. On the weekend we noticed that there were some globe artichokes ready to eat.

I'd never cooked or prepared artichokes before so there may be a more efficient way to do this. The first step is to remove some of the outside petals (if that's what they are called).

 

Then I chopped the top off.

This gives access to the choke which has to be removed with a spoon. The choke is the fluffy stuff in the middle.

 It's important to get all of it out so that it looks like this.

I then cleaned up the rest of the petals.

And was left with the heart. The hearts go brown quite quickly and need to be put in acidulated water to keep them looking good. I didn't bother with this as I only had the one and planned to cook it straight away.

Then the good bit - cooking them. I sliced them finely and fried them in olive oil. We all tried some and it was a big hit. 

There are lots more artichokes still on the plant so plenty more opportunities to experiment with other ways to prepare and cook them over the summer.