The thing is, I felt for artichoke like how I would feel if you put a newborn baby on my lap. I’d think it’s incredibly cute but what the heck do I do now?!” Panic! And I’m serious (and just to abate those who know me personally: I am not pregnant, ok?) when I say that.

Make no mistake, they’re undeniably amusing to look at and photograph, but I had no clue what to do with them. Never bought them so I never made anything with them. We’ve had the canned ones to make dips but never the fresh one.

When our friends in Hawaii (our awesome hosts) served us a steamed artichoke as part of dinner, I took the opportunity to taste it and learn how to eat it. The latter is definitely important or I would have tried to cook it until the whole thing is soft!

I think I cut it too much by the stem. What do you think?

When our friends prepared the artichoke, they boiled it with garlic between the leaves. But they weren’t garlic-insertion-happy as I was:

Can you say ARTICHOKE CONCENTRATION CAMP? But it’s pretty!

I added the juice of half a lemon in the water, plus salt, peppercorns and ground pepper.

I’m not sure what the heck I was thinking! Is that enough water?

Oh well. I get distracted by its beauty.

I don’t know if it’s cooked either.

Perhaps overdone?

It didn’t taste half as good as what we were served in Hawaii, and don’t tell me it’s because it was in Hawaii! Haha. This was a jumbo artichoke that we got from sprouts. It wasn’t as fleshy as I thought it would be. Any ideas why? Is it because it’s big?

I’d love to cook more artichokes but I still sit here helpless as to what else we can do with it. Do you have any suggestions? Should I get the smaller ones? Do I just boil them? With what? For how long? Point me to your recipes! I would love that. I see all sorts of recipes on the internet but most of them are for the canned artichokes.

We’ve only had the artichoke with mayo. Someone suggested a thousand island dressing. I’m open to more choices. :-) Thanks!!!

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Post tags: artichokes, vegetables

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Anyway, back to what I was saying, I couldn’t help it. I’m a victim of autosuggestion — all those repetitive thoughts about chocolate, from all your beautiful websites and the Food Network chocolate specials, and now I feel like it flows through my veins and it’s haunting me! I have three chocolate projects coming up, just because I lose sleep thinking about making them — does that every happen to you? But I’ll save them for Valentine’s week.

For now, we’ll take a chocolate break today to give you something healthy. [I laughed when I read Arnold's comment yesterday that his doctor does not recommend visiting this site. Funny.]

I absolutely LOVE seafood, but Dan doesn’t. On the few occasions that he is willing to eat them, you bet I’m all over it. Last week we bought fresh shrimps and I asked if he wanted them for lunch and he said yes. What’s a seafood-deprived girl left to do? Scramble to find out what she can cook, make it as fast as possible, and feed it to him before he changes his mind! We both loved this Shrimp Stir-Fry experiment I cooked and I had to jot down what I did right after we ate so I’ll remember how I made it and what I made it with. All this hard work…haha.

Here’s a visual step-by-step cooking guide:

The recipe is behind the cut. Please visit the site to read the rest of the entry.

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Post tags: asian, seafood, shrimps, stir fry, vegetables

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