Stuffed artichokes (p. 248) and Fish stock (p. 118)

Artichokes are one of my favorite foods and I had never made them before. My grandmother used to make me stuffed artichokes and it was a special delicious delicacy that my mother almost never made. I'm extremely happy when I see whole artichokes as an appetizer on a menu (rarely, I realize people don't like to eat with their hands at nice restaurants). Artichoke hearts with Wishbone 5-cheese Italian dressing (which I think they discontinued--very upsetting!) is one of my favorite snacks.

That all being said, I'm counting what I produced as Stuffed artichokes (p. 248), even though I didn't *completely* follow the recipe. I read the recipe and felt that the main point was that the artichokes are stuffed with something (they give a number of choices) and steamed. And the recipe uses medium artichokes.

First off, I used baby artichokes.




The top third of the artichoke was chopped off and the outside leaves were removed (they are tough and stringy). The stem is chopped off.



Instead of using TJOC's recommendation I stuffed my artichokes with a breadcrumb, Parmesan cheese, parsley, garlic powder, and olive oil mixture, which is my grandmother's recipe. Water was added into the pan until it was half way up the artichokes (TJOC recommends the steamer basket but they don't stand well that way).



After about twenty minutes, they were totally done.



I then gorged myself on them. I LOVE these. Artichokes are amazing! Now that I've passed my irrational fear of making my own stuffed artichokes I will make them more often--far far more often. I don't know how long Whole Foods will have baby artichokes, so I better eat large amounts while they are available.


I bought two trout on sale at the grocery store. They were field-dressed, so they had their guts removed but their head, tail, and bones still intact. I had no idea what to do with them and was too intimidated to follow any of TJOC's recipes, so I decided to make them into Fish stock (p. 118) (I know it's a waste but they were really cheap).

Like most stocks, it was easy. the fish, onion, a leek, garlic, lemon juice, and bouquet garni went into a pot with enough water to cover.



(The fish are under the veggies)




After about thirty minutes, the stock was done! It was incredibly fast. I drained the stock into a bowl and threw all the veggies away. Looking at my fish, I thought I could make another batch out of them, and made a second batch of stock. After the second batch, I threw the fish away (again, I know it was a huge waste, but I had no idea what to do with the fish).



The fish looked like it was swimming away! I packaged half the fish stock and put it in the freezer and saved the other half in the refidgerator to use in a future recipe. The stock was easy and fish scraps can be used instead of wasting whole fish.