The VETAMEATAVEGAMIN class

I Love Lucy!! Every time I see that episode it makes me laugh even harder.

Last night was definitely a Lucy episode in the class. Missing vegetables from the grocery orders, my couscous disappeared. It's good to have a backup plan. I had Tomatoes and Artichokes for my vegetables.

I don’t remember the book, but I can see the line “Mater Sammich! White bread, mater’s and some mayo, glass of iced tea and sitting on the sun porch is all life is about.” It stuck with me all through growing up in NJ.

Dad had the best garden in Monmouth County. He gave tomatoes out to everyone like they were weeds in the back yard, we had so many. I grew up making tomato sauce, and eating as many ripe tomatoes as you can in a summer season while they were fresh and big and juicy and red. In my opinion you can’t find another tomato like my Dad’s anywhere. So what! I am biased when it comes to fresh fruit and vegetables. If it’s not ripe or the right color why waste the money on them? I learned that from my Dad and thank him every day for that experience.

How can you go wrong with the tomato? I played around with so many recipes, and then finally decided to keep it simple. A fresh tomato pizza with basil, garlic oil, and feta cheese. Course it would have been nice that no toasted almonds were “accidentally” thrown on it while baking.

I only knew artichokes came in a jar with some marinade, sometimes on a pizza growing up. Then one Sunday I was invited to my friend Maria’s house for a family dinner celebration. In the middle of the table was this giant bowl and these green pine cones falling out. People were oohing and aahing over them as they scraped their teeth on the leaves being pulled and dipped into olive oil and lemon.

All I kept thinking was why am I here this little Irish-Polish girl with these big haired Italians? (Yes, it was the 80’s) Ok, so I had to try and not look like a fool that I have no idea what I am eating. I tried, I liked! I then went home (before the day of computers) and looked up in the family encyclopedia, artichokes and read all I could about them.

Artichokes are not something I cook on a regular basis, since the kids don’t appreciate them. So I was struggling with a recipe and spent way too much time on the internet, going back and forth about the simple or wow effect. Finally I decided to stuff them Mid-East style with couscous and some spice. But in between the decision and the actual class I went to this really cool Moroccan Kabob House for dinner with the hubby. Nick the owner gave us a sample of his roasted red pepper hummus. It is the best hummus you will ever taste. I coaxed some info out of him on his spices and had it as a backup plan for the artichokes. Glad I did, since that’s what I had to go with.

Artichokes are a pretty alien like vegetable when you pull it open. The scraping the meat of the vegetable with a dollop of hummus was oh-so- yummy.