First, if you remember, I said how it was surreal with no cats around me? Well, I’ve heard one, twice! Kind of freaked me out, but I’m ok now. And tonight,I got to eat with no one wanting to smell my food!

Second, I ate an artichoke that was bigger than your head! It took me about 1.5 hours to eat it, but I ate it!

Remember how I packed everything to move? Well, as I was coming back to Atlanta last night, I started to wonder how I was gong to cook this bad boy! I found one pot in the cabinet, more of a teensy tiny pot that holds maybe 4 cups, max…this was not going to work! I did remember that I ran the dishwasher before we left and I had clean cutlery. My one sharp knife in the house, a Quikcut Paring Knife from Pampered Chef, a really small knife, but sharp enough to cut the end and the leaves.

I went online and found a recipe/instructions on how to cook it in the microwave and let me tell you, Y U M! I didn’t have any plastic wrap, so I followed the instructions, cut the tips, rinsed the artichoke, sprinkled with lemon juice (helps cut down the bitterness) rinsed again (not a fan of lemon anything)
double wrapped in wet paper towels and a microwave safe bowl. Cooked for 7 minutes, that wasn’t quite enough, added 5 more minutes and it was done!

I like to melt some butter, add fresh garlic and sometime either bread crumbs or Parmesan cheese for dipping. It was terrific! When i normally cook them on the stovetop, it takes 30, 35, sometimes 40 minutes to cook. This was so easy, I’m definitely going to have to it again!

I bought the artichoke at the Walmart near the apartment. Sometimes they have really good produce, and sometimes, they will carry what the supermarket doesn’t.

It was funny, on the shuttle to the airport yesterday, aside from finding out way more than I wanted to know about some people, when I showed them the artichoke, we started talking about genetically modified fruit an the controversy. I said, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, so, if I’m going to go due to genetically modified vegetables, I’m ok with that!

I attached the web page where I got the microwave recipe.
http://kitchen-parade-veggieventure.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-cook-artichokes-in-microwave.html

Happy cooking!