My New Favorite Lunch

One of the best things about working from home is that I can seriously eat whatever I want when it's time to break for lunch.  In the past when I worked at a retail location, my choices for lunch were:

1.) Drive to the nearest fast food place. Scarf down my super unhealthy lunch.  Speed back to work before my break was over.

2.) Buy a frozen meal and heat it up in the microwave in the break room.  On later snack breaks, I would visit the vending machine and much on cookies and chocolate bars while drinking Dr. Pepper.

Looking back, this sucked in many ways.  It was expensive (compared to what I am spending now), it wasn't healthy, and it just plain wasn't enjoyable.  Sure, I got away from work for 30 minutes, but I didn't get to enjoy my lunch as I was stressed about how many seconds I had left before I had to return to work. :(

Now, I can eat healthier and take my time to eat. I usually have some sort of BBC Victorian era mini series up on my Netflix instant streaming, so while I eat my lunch I watch a little bit of that.  I have recently begun to eat a lot of different foods that in the past I would have NEVER tried.  One of my newest favorite foods is ARTICHOKES.  Holy crap.  They sound so scary. And look scary.  However, I get so *excited* when it's Artichoke-For-Lunch Day! It's like the highlight of my day. (Is that sad?) Plus, artichokes are really good for you.

This is a dish you have to plan in advance because there is about 2 hours from the time you start to the time you are eating. Anyway, here's how I make mine:

1 artichoke
olive oil
1-5 large cloves of garlic (normal people probably use 2, but I LOOOOVE garlic, so I use 5)
half a lemon
salt


Preheat Oven to 425°

Cut off the stem and 1" or so off the top. (You need to cut enough off the top to be able to open up the leaves a little to stuff awesomeness inside). I use a serrated bread knife.

Lay a large piece of tin foil in a glass dish.  Pour a little olive oil in the middle of the tinfoil, and then put the artichoke in the middle of the tinfoil.

Cut garlic into flat strips, then take pieces of garlic and add throughout the artichoke (see photos).

Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the artichoke and all up in them leafy thangs.

Follow the same drizzling routine with the juice of half a lemon.

Lightly sprinkle a pinch of salt over artichoke.

Wrap up artichoke in tinfoil until completely covered.

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.  Let cool for a few minutes and then open the tin foil to reveal the most delicious lunch ever.

You're welcome.

 Cooked artichoke ready to be devoured.

 

 Garlic surprises, my favorite part!!

 Pasta dish by Sur La Table (Thanks, Mom & Grandad!)

**Oh, how to eat if you aren't sure:

Tear off the leaves and scrape the meaty part that was near the base of the leaf with your teeth.  The first layer or so of leaves may not have that much meat.  Eat the garlic as you find them.  Once you get to the middle there will be a scary, spiky, furry layer.  Don't eat this.  Pull off all the "fur" and set aside.  You are then left with a meaty disc drenched in olive oil and lemon juice.  This is what love tastes like. (You eat this part.)