Cashew Aioli / Artichoke Aioli

Recipe 24 & 25 Cashew Aioli  pg. 240/Artichoke Aioli pg. 241
1/6 of the way done with Crazy Sexy Kitchen!

Artichoke Aioli

Are you enjoying your holiday weekend?  I am finally feeling recovered from Thanksgiving.  Having everyone over, entertaining and clean up is exhausting. Well worth it most of the time, but I needed time to recuperate to feel like me again.  I made a few great dishes on Thanksgiving from Crazy Sexy Kitchen, and thought I would be able to take care of my family and blog at the same time.  Turns out I wasn't as together as I had hoped.  So a couple of days late but back on track now.

I made Cashew Aioli, which I quickly turned into Artichoke Aioli as one of my appetizers.  I really liked it.  I was a little skeptical of the the cashew base, but turns out who needs sour cream when you have cashews.  It blended up into this creamy dip.  Here are the ingredients needed for your aioli:

My guests loved it.  They went right through it.  I served it with a sliced up baguette of bread.  I do think I preferred eating the aioli right after I made it versus letting it sit and absorb all the spices.  The tarragon may have gotten a bit stronger than I would have preferred.  I made it and then refrigerated it for a couple of hours.  This aioli would compliment so many dishes. Even something as simple as a baked potato!! Yum! I blended up the base recipe, Cashew Aioli.

Then I tossed in the ingredients that turned it into Artichoke Aioli.  As a novice cook I never realized how easy it would be to spruce up a dish with something such as this aioli. I would have been intimidated to try something like this a month ago.  I just thought it would have been more complicated. You really kick up the wow factor by making an easy sauce to compliment your meal.  This took minutes to put together which makes it a hit for me.  The kids liked it too!

Thanksgiving is done, as well as Black Friday.  My brother-in-law actually had to be at work at 4 AM on Black Friday.   I guess he lucked out, it could have been midnight on Thanksgiving.  Next up Christmas! One month...