Artichoke's Day

Artichokes are one of my favorite food. As I bought plenty of them yesterday in Italy, today was the right day for the Artichoke's Day;) First dish: Artichokes Filled with Artichokes. For two prepare:
- 4 large artichokes
- 100 g fresh mushrooms or 50 g dried mushrooms
- 1 small onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 3 T ground almonds
- 2 T soy sauce
- 1 T olive oil
- juice of 1 lemon
Cut the stems of the artichokes, peel the hard leaves off and cut the top third off. Soak the artichokes in the lemon juice. Peel the stems removing all the hard bets. Cut into small pieces. Do the same with the mushrooms. Chop the onion and garlic.

Boil the artichokes for 5 to 10 minutes, put on them on a baking tray and spread them open. Saute the onion and garlic, add the artichokes stems and mushrooms. Saute for 5 minutes. Add the almonds and soy sauce. Stir well. Fill the artichokes with the mixture and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 30 to 40 minutes.

Second dish: Artirisochoky; get ready with:
- olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 10 - 12 baby artichokes
- 1 t ginger powder
- 150 g rice
- cca 400 ml vegetable stock
- 3-4 T grated parmesan

Peel 3 to 4 layers of leaves of the artichokes and cut them into 4 to 6 pieces.

Heat the oil. Saute the onion and the garlic. Add the artichokes, stir and cook for some minutes.
Add the ginger, stir. Add the rice and the vegetable stock. Cook until the rice is cooked.
Finally, add the grated parmesan.

Local & Non - local

It has passed a week since I took these pictures. Time management is still not my strong point, but I'm improving. However the previous weekend I managed to prepare one local and one non-local dish. The local one is originally called "Jota". It' sort of a "thick sour turnip soup" (it can be made also with sour cabbage). You need: 1/2 kg turnip, 3 big potatoes, 3 cups beans, 3 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper. First boil the turnip (in water) with the garlic (it takes around an hour). Separately cook the potatoes and the beans. Once everything is cooked, mash the potatoes and the beans and add both to the turnip. Mix well, season and cook for another 15 minute.
The non-local dish were my Surprise Tortillas. Surprise comes from the fact that you never know what's in the tortillas till the moment you taste it. Actually it depends what you have in the fridge;) Well, this time it was the moment for tofu, red peppers and (dried) mushrooms. So I took: 4 tortillas, 2 red peppers, 150 g tofu, soy sauce, (sesame) oil and a cup of dried mushrooms.
Firstly, marinate the tofu in the soy sauce for at least an hour. Secondly, soak the mushroom. Meanwhile chop the peppers. After the tofu is marinated, fry it on (sesame) oil. Set aside. In the same pot add some more oil and cook the peppers and the mushrooms. Once done, mix everything together and put the mixture in the tortillas. Roll them. If you like cheese (who doesn't?;), put some on the top and heat in the oven or in the microwave.
The last stage was the Dark Chocolate Pudding. Very simple;) Buy the pudding, stir it in 1 dcl of soy milk. Add 4 dcl of soy milk more, bring to boil, pour in the cups and allow to cool. Serve with cacao powder and soy cream.