Sweet Lentil and Artichoke Vegan Bowl

Wow. I am SO behind as far as posting recipes. This one was from July. July guys. It is October...my bad. It is like we've been a little busy or something. Training. Races. Traveling. Playing. Life. Time is a sneaky thing.

Anyway, I love artichokes. The only problem is that they are A. expensive and B. hard to prepare. Because of this, I rarely make them. But when they are $1 a piece, I gotta get one. Just one...because I can make a penny scream (or so my mother claims.)

But what do you do with one artichoke? You definitely don't have company. I decided to put it in a Buddha Bowl. I paired it with my sweet lentils dish and it was fantastic.

I wanted to try something new with prepping y artichoke so I did some quick google and Pinterest searches and found a few ideas that I combined into one delicious idea.

Ingredients

For Artichokes

1 artichoke

3 cloves garlic

fresh basil

olive oil

salt and pepper

For Sweet Lentils

1/2 c brown lentils, rinsed

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced

1/4 c pecans or walnuts

5 dates, pitted and diced

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp pure maple syrup

salt and pepper to taste

cinnamon to taste

Fresh Kale

Directions

Artichoke Prep

1. Wash artichoke

2. Roughly chop a few cloves of garlic and wrap the pieces in leaves of basil

3. Pull the leaves back and shove the basil wrapped garlic into the leaves (to let the flavor infuse into the artichoke), brush artichoke with oil (just a little for flavor), and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

4. Steam the artichoke until soft

(I put it in my baby food steamer. It fit perfectly.)

5. Chop artichokes in half and remove the rough fibrous part that you don't eat

6. Wrap in foil to keep warm and set aside.

Sweet Lentil Prep

1. Combine lentils with 4 c water in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer and cook until tender. Drain and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Peel and dice sweet potato and spray with a little bit of oil. Sprinkle with cinnamon, salt and pepper and bake 20 minutes until soft.

3. Chop dates and toast pecans (I just microwave them for 1 minute)

4. Combine mustard, vinegar, and syrup and whisk together

5. When lentils and potatoes are done, toss everything together