Stuffed artichokes

Hi Fried Okie fans!! Oh how long I've been gone. I've missed y'all!! School is winding down! Only 4 days left, I can't wait. No more alarm every morning. No more school lunches. No sitting down to help with K-7th grade homework. Since the last post, we have had a run away, a car finally die the last time, bought a mustang, and put one of the boats up for sale. Two days ago, my grandmas garage burned down, and while they were fixing a hole in my street, I had to move my car to make room for equipment, and I got a registration ticket!! A few days ago, I had a tune stuck in my head I just couldn't shake. It wasn't a song I knew, so I sat down and wrote lyrics. Three songs later, my hubby has a song, my oldest has a background track for his YouTube, and my daddy is going to lay down the music for them. With all this, I just had to make this dinner. sometimes I feel like I'm going to lose my mind, but a few minutes in the kitchen, and I feel better, and when we sit down to eat and everyone eats it up and loves it, I am a happy girl. All right, enough rambling, let's cook! I made enough stuffing to do 6 artichokes, but only made four because my hubby was at work, and my oldest is on a camping trip for the long weekend. First, cut off the stem, snip the thorny tips off the leaves, and cut each choke in half. I love the pretty purple on the inside!

I steam the halves about 10-15 minutes, just to soften them.

I had four slices of sourdough I made the other day, so I toasted up the bread in small cubes, added some salt pepper, rosemary, basil, parsley, oregano, and sage. After a quick whirl in the food processor, I had bread crumbs. I'd guess about a cup and a half.

I grated up two cups of fresh parmesan, my favorite, so it is very hard to not munch on it, and run out before I can get it into dinner!

Brown off a pound of Italian sausage, add a package of thawed and drained spinach, salt, pepper, a cup of white wine, about 1/3 cup lemon juice, and your bread crumbs. Remove from heat.

Here's where you get burned if you're not patient!! Using a spoon remove the center leaves, and the fuzzy stuff from the heart.

Add the parmesan to the filling mixture and stir in so it melts. Then just spoon the mixture into the wells you made in each artichoke.

Put a bit of olive oil on a cookie sheet, and place each choke leaf side down and bake at 350 for about 10-15 minutes.

For the picture I have both halves on a plate, but this is so filling, a serving is probably just a half, especially if you serve this with warm Italian bread. Enjoy. So good, and very easy. It only took me about 40 minutes, from start to finish!

Give this one a try, and come back and let me know how it was! I had Facebook friends request this one, so I posted it today. I'm gonna give it an honest shot to post more often, so many posts and recipes half finished, and so very little time to get them up! It's almost summer vacation, so get ready to see what the kids are cookin up in this Fried Okie's kitchen!