Roasted Artichokes

I've always steamed artichokes.  It seemed like the fastest way to cook them, and every time I tried to roast or grill them, they took forever and dried out.  Not only do artichokes have a high work to satisfaction ratio, they take a very long time to cook. And living in San Francisco, there are only about two days a year where we are inspired enough to grill anything in our backyard.  

We did get some sunshine, just in time for the Cherry Blossom festival in Japantown this weekend.

Team Mead-Long, aprons on, hard at work in the kitchen.

I went out to eat a month ago though, and ordered roasted artichokes with aioli dipping sauce as an appetizer.  It was divine.  I lost interest in the conversation for about 20 minutes, as I polished it off.  While I haven't gotten around to making the aioli (which by the way, is basically mayonnaise with garlic for the uninitiated) to accompany the artichokes, I did start searching for a good roasted artichoke recipe.  After comparing different suggestions, I've settled on the following approach:

Ingredients:
2 artichokes
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1 lemon
4 heads of garlic
Course sea salt
Pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400.
2. Trim the artichokes.  Cut off the bottom part of the stem, and about the top 1/4 (which is inedible) of the artichoke. 
3. You will want to wrap each artichoke in aluminim foil and may want to prepare it over the foil, so you don't lose a lot of the toppings.
4. Cover each artichoke in about 1 TBL of EVOO.  Make sure to get it between the leaves of the artichoke.  
5. Peel the garlic and slice each piece in half.  Insert the four pieces into the artichoke.
6. Cover the artichoke in lemon juice from half a lemon.
7. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, wrap in the aluminim foil, and cook for about an hour and fifteen minutes.

With this recipe, you really don't need a sauce but I will probably try it with aioli at some over the next couple of weeks.  Because why not.