Artichokes...tsk.

Last night I prepared my first artichoke. I hated every second of it. I was stabbed, sliced and bled before I was even done trimming the thing. Granted, it was a baby artichoke so it may have been full of hatred for me since it was not allowed to live up to its fullest delicious potential and I don't fault it for that, but from now on, Nickolas is the official artichoke ambassador. No more for me.

With the approximate 1/14th of a teaspoon of artichoke heart I gleaned from that little baby, I set out to make some chicken artichoke pasta. As I mentioned before, I have zero artichoke experience points, so I was winging it. I diced up the other half of the chicken breast from lunch and browned it in a teaspoon of butter with a clove of chopped garlic and some marjoram while a handful of linguine cooked. On another burner, I made browned butter. I've had browned butter before at my favorite little dinner spot in the neighborhood I just moved from, but I'd never made it on my own. It wasn't nearly as complicated as I'd imagined; it just took a bit of patience. I prepared two tablespoons of it, though I only used one. After the pasta, chicken and butter were done, I tossed them all together with a giant squeeze of fresh lemon juice, a couple tablespoons of chicken broth and then topped it with a little bit of super finely grated parmesan. Overall, it was okay. I think I just need to experiment some more with artichokes (ones that come in a jar and don't hold a deathwish for me!) before I give up a concrete recipe for something involving them. What a shame.

 

Finally an excuse to use my great grandmother's pretty plates! 

Since I am having guests for dinner tonight, I wanted to make something for dessert that wouldn't be too terribly sweet but still satisfied. I had the baking basics, some dark cocoa, a couple of bananas that were ready to pass into the afterlife and a 5lb bag of carrots. I hit the internet to search for a banana-carrot cake recipe and came across this recipe, which looked promising. 

Something I should probably confess is that I tend to never use recipes. Nothing seems to turn out right when I follow recipes. There's always some adjustment I make in preparation or ingredients even if I've never used the recipe before to see how it would turn out if made according to instructions. It's a terrible habit and it makes it very hard for me to give people recipes they ask for if I prepare them something they love. "Oh...um. Well, I used some of this and some of that and you could use some of this too and that'd be good." UGH. 

I did modify this recipe a bit by using 3/4 cup banana, 1.5 cups of carrot pulp + 1/4 c carrot juice and only 2/3 c sugar; this would be plenty sweet without the entire amount called for in the recipe. It turned out well, but I might have added a bit more cinnamon next time just so there's no flour taste coming through in the bread. Hopefully my lovely dinner guests will enjoy it. I plan on feeding them wine before they eat it, so that should help.