Sayonara Cardaculus, Artichoke Thistle, Wild Artichoke so better be careful here. It is kind windy day. The wind blow too much, I am going to get stabbed in the eye. These are incredibly sharp.
So welcome to Ferrel Kevin. So here, we are with this incredible plant. Most people look at this and they say, “Ouch!” And they would be right because it is razor sharp so sharp you cannot hardly believe it. There are small needles of razor sharpness coming out this whole plant. They also make beautiful flowers. You can see a little bit for me here that the bees like. But they are all up and down the hills over here and usually when it was overgrazed or disturbed, it grows it grows in marginal area and it is an amazing abundant food source that is totally neglected around here. So what people, you know, they hate this plant so much, that they spray glyphosphate round up for pesticide on it often and there are a lot of problems of course associated with that. When in fact if you really do not want it to make a new plant, because it makes this really big seeds, because that is how it spread, it does not spread in an underground runner, you just come and harvest the flower top, it will never make seeds. So if we actually eat this delicious free gourmet food, we will stop the spread of this plant. So the people that hate it they want too.
But what few people know is that this is basically an Artichoke. This is the wild artichoke plant. It is Sayonara Cardankiolus. And so this year, these unripe, unopened, flower buds, these are artichokes. You cook them the same way, they taste the same way, and it is just when you are eating them you have got to be careful because they are sharp. And so we are just going to out them in a bag here. And there are parts of the plants that you could actually touch that is part sharp. So if you are careful, you can just grab it like that, fill them in the bag, and there are a lot of them here. So to make it easier you can just kind the find the rib where it does not have a spike, find a place to grab it and cut the whole thing or you can just cut the pods off, and of course I just cut it…
It is sharp, really sharp. One of the reasons people hate it but delicious. So another thing that you can do is you can machete it. A lot of times you cannot really get in there because the leaves have the spikes too. So, you can just then just pick them off the ground.
Look at that. That is a lot of food. That is a lot of artichoke. Some gourmet Ferrel living. That is quicker that way.
Take it back in the kitchen and hopefully you will see that it is an artichoke. Straight up, you pull this off, you eat it and you throw this away and it is just good as the artichoke part. In fact, if I give you one and I did not tell you that it is from the wild artichoke or artichoke thistle, you would not know the difference most likely.
So here is my harvest of Artichoke thistles and before I put them in the bag, what I am just going around with my prunes and just cutting the heads off because on this the stalks does not taste very good. They are bitter; in my experience unlike the artichoke, the stalks sometimes are really good. Sometimes the stalk of an artichoke is bitter too. And so I am going through and just cutting the heads off. And I will use the pruners to pick it up and then put it in the bag.
She has a whole bag full of this and each one of this has a heart on it so that is a lot of artichoke hearts for about five minutes work so we have taken the artichokes in the kitchen and we are just going to steam them up. So this is a simple steamer, and a pan with a little water in it. And so throw them and mix there carefully, throw them and mix there of big ones and small ones. So the way that I test to see when the artichoke is done is of course, I take the top off, and I just hog one of the pieces as if I am going to eat it. So kids do not try this at home because I am not only putting my hand in a steam pot, but that is really hot as you can see, but I am also grabbing something that is really sharp. So you just tug at it and when you tug and it does not come off and it picks the whole thing up then it is not ready. So put the lead back on. So it has been about 45 minutes that these had been steaming and I am going to check them again. And take the lid off. And be careful it is sharp and hot.
And it comes off and in customary fashion; you just sort of scrape the inside of it with your teeth. Just a little bit of meat on the outer ones and as you go gown there I more, more meat until you gets to the heart, just as it is with the artichoke a regular artichoke. Uhm, very sweet so here is the here is one of the wild artichokes fresh from the steamer. I am just eating my way down to the heart.
So it is just looks so cool. Just a nice gourmet piece to bring to the table it brings a lot of visual entry and also because it is so sharp, you have to be careful and make you more conscious and aware of what you are eating. But it also makes it more fun and makes it something toque. So there is a part in here where you can see the flowers are about to open. So it was like a bunch of cooked little bristle flower but the bottom part is the heart. Yeah, it is delicious. So the little, the flower part has popped off and is left with the heart. At least the part we have not eaten yet. That makes it easier to put it on a pizza or you can just pop it down.
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