GRILLED ARTICHOKES WITH LEMON AIOLI!

I confess... I'm an artichoke lover! In fact my whole family is, we can't resist them in any way shape or form!

Give us a pan of stuffed artichokes and we are all smiles, as we sit around the table scraping each leaf working are way down to the "heart", by the time we are finished we each have a pile of scraped and discarded leaves on our plates! Now that's some good eating!!
But now that it's BBQ season we enjoy eating them grilled just as much. I think the hardest thing about cooking artichokes is the prep, to prepare them for the grill you have to cut the top off,discard some outer leaves and trim up the remaining ones.


You'll want to cut them in quarters, and remove any fuzzy center and pull out all pointy and scratchy leaves. Immediately after cutting immerse them in lemon water until ready to cook.
Place them in a pot of salted water and cook till tender.

Drain well, and gently squeeze out excess water, set aside in a bowl.

A couple of hours before they are ready to be grilled, toss them in some extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and crushed garlic, salt and pepper.

The lemon aioli is whipped up very quickly with a good store bought mayonnaise, a little crushed garlic, fresh lemon juice, along with the rind, and salt and pepper to taste. Just make sure the consistency is good for dipping.

I actually like to grill these in my indoor grill pan, I feel have more control because they are a little fragile, and besides the marinade flavor seems to not burn off. But you absolutely can put them on your grill outside, just make sure your grill is super clean, you don't want to take on any other flavors.

These are great appetizers to start off a meal, or to have as a nice side dish.

And last but not least, I want to thank my Florida house guests that were staying with us a couple of weeks ago, they gave me this beautiful blue oval platter ( for my blog!!) I don't think the picture does it justice you can't see how huge it is! I thought the green artichokes would look nice on it, what do you think?

Anyway, thanks again, Angie and Pat, Diane, Donny, and of course Lindsey and Lauren.