Almost every night we have popcorn hour. Popcorn hour used to be cocktail time but in our pursuit of better, healthier eating we have forsaken the drinks part of the ritual. On Wednesday, though, we passed up the popcorn for a vegetable, an artichoke! If I can find smallish ones we each get one whole artichoke but the grocers only had giant ones so we split it in half. My easy cooking of artichoke is to rinse them off, put them in a sturdy plastic bag, unsealed, and microwave until done. The timing depends on the size of the artichoke, maybe 5 minutes, maybe 8. Sometimes I use a little spray faux butter while I am eating it but on Wednesday I had it plain.

For our main course we had whole grain penne pasta with a sauce of sautéed mushrooms, onions, garlic, asparagus, and a bit of the pasta water. A drizzle of olive oil finishes the dish.