Here is a spring market basket from the produce section of our local store. When I am looking for ideas for what to cook I usually start shopping in the produce section because it inspires me. Left to right: baby romaine, red pepper, ugly tomato, golden beet, Easter Egg radishes, asparagus and an artichoke.

I decided to make a vegetarian dinner :

• Spring root vegetable salad
• Boiled artichoke with lemon
• Roasted vegetables over whole grain couscous

First, I started the artichoke since it takes the longest to cook:

Trim the spikes with scissors and cut the artichoke in half. Remove the center:

Place in boiling water and cook until tender, about 10-15 minutes. They tend to float so you should flip them half way:

Here are the finished artichoke halves – they are served on a white platter with fresh lemon.

The eggplant, asparagus and red peppers were cut in thin sticks. I lightly brushed them with olive oil and finely minced garlic:

And then broiled them in the oven for 10 minutes – look how wonderfully golden they came out:

Whole grain couscous is perhaps the easiest whole grain to prepare. It involves 2 ingredients and a minute of time:

1 cup water – bring to boil in a large measuring cup in the microwave

1 cup whole grain couscous – pour it into the boiling water, sit one minute, fluff with a fork. You can toss with lemon and herbs or a light dressing. It can go into salads or be a side dish. In this case it was the main entree with roasted vegetables on top:

When the vegetables were golden brown, they were removed from the oven and placed atop the fluffy whole grain couscous:

Meanwhile, while the veggies were cooking I prepared the spring root salad. Here are the Easter Egg radishes and the golden beet:

I shredded the beet with the grater and finely sliced the radishes atop the baby romaine. They were presented on a flat platter :