Braised Baby Artichokes with Garlic & Lemon Thyme

I picked out the cutest baby artichokes at the farmer's market on Sunday.  The plan was to have them with our Father's Day dinner, but we ended up going out for Chinese with my sister's family.  So we had them tonight instead.

I gave them a good scrub under running water and then cut them in half.  

There was only a tiny bit of choke inside, so I scraped it out with a spoon.  

I put them in a bowl of cold water with lemon juice until I was ready to cook them.

In a large saute pan with a lid, I combined 1 cup of water, 1/4 C of olive oil, 7 sliced cloves of garlic, a pinch of kosher salt, the juice of 1/2 a lemon and five sprigs of lemon thyme.

You could use regular thyme, I just happened to have a good amount of the lemon in the garden today.

I added the artichoke halves, cut side down.

At this point, you'll want to bring everything to a boil, cover and reduce heat to a rapid simmer.

Cook for about 12 to 15 minutes.

Remove lid, crank the heat back up and cook for another 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and squeeze the other half of your lemon over everything.  

Season with salt, if needed.

I put what was remaining of the sauce in a shallow dish with some more olive oil to dunk our bread in.

That alone could have made a meal for me, but I made fettuccine with brown butter and basil to please the natives.

Everybody got a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Here's dinner on my plate: