artichokes with penne

I mentioned before that I got interested again in cooking when brother Chris gave me a honkin' huge traditional Italian cookbook for Christmas a couple year ago. Some of the recipes are not something I'd like to attempt, things with squid ink and intesines, etc. Other recipes are really easy and have about 2 ingredients. One of husband Chris and my favorites is a sauteed artichoke dish with penne. I like how with dishes prepared in a saute pan, you can take liberties with the recipe more easily than in a baking dish that gets put in the oven and is not to be disturbed for hours and hours, and I definitely did that with this recipe. It calls for things like fresh artichokes, and it says how to cook them and whatnot, but there won't be good fresh artichokes for a while, so I just use canned. It's so easy, I can tell you what I did tonight without looking at the recipe.


heat some olive oil (3-5 Tbls, ish) in a large saute pan over low heat. Toss in a whole garlic clove, some parsley and a dash of red pepper flakes and saute until the garlic is lightly toasted, or however you like it. TOSS THE GARLIC (there's going to be some major heat in a second, and the garlic will burn and smell awful if you leave it in). Finely chop a couple cans of non-marinated artichoke hearts. Throw those in the saute pan and raise the heat to medium. Give it a good stir, and then let it simmer away in it's juice. Eventually, that juice is going to evaporate. What I like to do then, if there's time, is let the artichokes get nice and brown. This adds an amazing flavor that the steamed/stewed artichokes (what was going on as the water was evaporating) just doesn't have. My pan usually gets pretty dry, and even on our non-stick saute pan you get little bits stuck to the bottom. That's ok. Keep stirring occasionally to move more artichokes in contact with the pan. When it gets to the doneness that you like it (the browner the better, I say), use a little of the pasta water from your penne to de-glaze the pan. Maybe you could also use white wine(?) I don't know how white wine goes with artichokes, but you DEFINITELY do NOT want to use red wine. That would be awful.

Tonight, I let the artichokes get browner than usual, to the point of crispness, and I added the red pepper flakes, which I never did before, and both were good additions. The recipe calls for fresh parsley, but I won't have any of that for a few weeks, so I always use dried.

serve with the penne, and it you want, either parm. or mozz. cheese. Or, you can not serve it with pasta, but put the artichokes in a baking dosh, top with cheese and bake until melty, then serve with slices of bread. Delicious!