I watched Giada at Home Saturday morning – the episode was “Everyday Ingredients”.  Two recipes on that show looked really exciting, so I made both of them for Saturday nights dinner.  First I’ll review and offer all my comments on the Artichoke Soup with Fresh Mint and next time I’ll write about the Hearty Meatball Stew later this week.

I won’t publish the recipe on my blog — you can find it here on the Food Network website — but I will tell you how I adjusted this recipe.  First of all, my store doesn’t carry frozen artichoke hearts, so I just swapped out canned artichoke hearts (non-marinated). I used 1.5 14.5 ounce cans of artichokes.  I was excited about the mint flavor, so I added 2.5-3x the mint suggested int he recipe.

My version turned out very nicely.  The addition of the lemon at the end was a perfect way to bring all the flavors together.  Other than using more mint and swapping out frozen artichokes with canned artichokes, I don’t think anything else needed to be tweaked.

One suggestion that Giada didn’t mention (that I noticed at least) was that this soup would be a great spring/summer cold soup.  I love cold artichoke hearts (in salads or as a side dish) and the mint coupled with the citrus bite from the lemon would be a wonderful soup for an al fresco meal in the summer.  When I make this soup the next time, I think I’ll make a much larger batch and freeze part of it.  If you know me, you know how much I hate left overs — but freezing this soup and serving it could I think would be absolutely lovely. Plus it would allow me to NOT crank up the stove when it is miserably hot in Chicago in the summer.

Sorry I didn’t take a picture of the final product, I was just so excited to eat (and entertain my guests) I completely forgot to take a photo. Next time.

Have any of you made this recipe?  When you are visiting me, would you like to try it?  Do you love Giada’s recipes? Who is your favorite Food Network chef (mine are Giada and Ina, even though Ida was rude to me at a book signing and I still haven’t forgiven her yet)? Don’t you think lemon and mint are a great combination for a warm weather meal?