Thursday, February 7, 2013

Will Work for Food

It may be the hunter-gatherer instincts in me, but I really like to work for my food.  I love eating things like crab legs, ribs you have to gnaw at, pomegranates, whole coconuts, escargot in shells, soup with long noodles ... basically anything that requires a little effort to eat.  

Tonight we cooked up a fabulous, effort-required dinner.

We steamed a couple of artichokes.


Steamed Artichokes

Prepare the artichoke:

Trim off the top of the flower and the stem.  For extra aesthetic appeal, use kitchen shears to snip the top of each petal (there is a little thorn on there, that does soften up when you steam it, but it looks better when it's trimmed).  Rinse well.


Cook the artichoke:

Fill a large pot with water and set a metal steamer inside.  Once the water is boiling, place the artichokes in and steam for 30 minutes.

Eat the artichoke:

Pull off the petals one by one.  Dip the petal in melted butter or other dip; put the petal in your mouth upside down and use your bottom teeth to scrape off the soft part.  Discard the petal.  Once you get to the middle you will find a hairy looking beast called the choke.  Scrape this off (with a fork or knife) and find the tender heart beneath it - this is the good stuff.

And because that's not enough work to eat ... we enjoyed our artichokes with lobster tails.  

 

We don't use any special tools to get into these - we just tear them open with our hands, and dip them in buttah ... melty, melty buttah.

 

Do you like to work for your food?  What's the most difficult-to-eat food you've ever eaten?

4 comments:

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

I am the opposite and am kind of lazy and don't like to work for my food, which is why I am not crazy about eating things like crab! I would like to try artichokes, though. so far I have only had canned ones in recipes!

Allysia said...

Lol, you're too funny. Though I'm with you on the artichokes - what I really like about them is that they take so long to eat, so if you're in the mood to casually munch something it's perfect. And I do love to eat, so the longer I get to the better. :)

Kacy said...

A guy mocked me in the grocery store for 5 minutes today because I bought pre-sliced mangos. I am L-A-Z-Y. Oh well.
I love artichokes though and that looks great!

Amber said...

I LOVE artichokes but have never ate them like that! Will have to try it one time.