What I Cooked: Some Recipes from a very lazy cook

My friend Elizabeth, who is a pastry chef extraordinaire wants to know how I cooked those artichokes from a couple of posts ago. I've cooked artichokes before with friends or lovers who agreed to steer the operation--and the artichokes were fabulous. Left to my own devices this time, I did this:

I drizzled the olive oil as instructed, and in my typical lazy cook fashion, threw in a couple wedges of lemon and two or three large peeled cloves of garlic. (I don't salt while cooking! And pepper makes my mom choke!) There were 5 small/medium artichokes in the pot. I stuck them with one of my great-grandmother's cooking forks to be sure they were done.

They were delicious. I kinda followed the recipe for the mayo dip--and I put the bottle of olive oil on the table in case anyone wanted to dilute the mayo stuff.

As for the tahini dressing shown below, I did not have any miso and neither did the local supermarket. I'm pretty sure my friend Paula Googled how to make tahini, and I gave that conversation not quite enough of my attention (I was already cooking, I think). I did remember the part about sesame seeds in the food processor so we bought some of those, and I made a little paste out of the seeds and olive oil and then proceeded as the recipe instructed, but the stuff was still pasty, so I added more oil, vinegar, and a few more drops of maple syrup. Result: I'd eat that stuff on toast--if I ate toast. But don't ask me how much of this or that I added.

These recipes are from the new CSA I joined, Fresh Picks from Deardorff Organic Farm, and all five recipes were as good as the produce itself. I confess that I am a serial CSA-dater. Break-ups have ranged from friendly to I-never-want-to-see-your-tomatoes- again. Right now, it's all honeymoon with the Deardorffs. These people can garden and cook.