I'll start with the apple since that's much easier to explain. First of all, no research necessary, as we are pretty good apple-eaters. In fact, I eat an apple every day at lunch during the work week. Since we're already accustomed to eating Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Gala, and Honey Crisp apples, we went with a new one neither of us has tried: Braeburn. You can see what they look like in this first picture. We ate it for dessert tonight, as it is sweet and tart at the same time, and we agree we'd both eat it again!
The artichokes are a different story - not surprising since neither of us had ever selected or prepared this vegetable. I actually had to spend quite a while researching what to look for when you buy an artichoke (heavy, firm, green, compact center leaves), how to prepare it, and how to eat it! I learned a lot... a difficult way to start our challenge, but probably a good introduction to what we've gotten ourselves into! Artichokes must be prepared a certain way: wash them and gently scrub the leaves, clip the leaf ends off with kitchen shears, cut off the bottom stem and the top of the vegetable, rub with a lemon to keep the ends from browning, boil in salted water for 25-30 minutes (increasing the time for larger artichokes), drain the artichoke upside down, let cool. I learned you can't eat the whole leaf, either. To eat the artichoke, you must gently pull each petal off, dip the base of the petal in whatever sauce you'd like (we used a lemon butter sauce), then slowly pull the petal through slightly clinched teeth to remove the soft flesh at the bottom of the petal. Then, you discard the remainder of the petal. Finally, you arrive at the heart of the choke. This part you can fully eat; it's also the part most people are familiar with and often cook with.
Sam and I were not thrilled about artichokes. We felt it was a lot of preparation for very little "meat" on each petal. The heart was "eh," and we can always buy canned artichoke hearts if we want to cook with them. However, Sam didn't care much for the heart's consistency/texture, so we probably won't cook with them. I'm glad we tried them, but I'm also glad we are done with them! :)
On another note, we did try another whole-grain tonight with our southwestern turkey meatloaf (a recipe from our friend, Gretchen; YUM!). We tried millet, a very bland whole grain that looks very similar to cous-cous. We added the tiniest bit of butter and salt (as you would in rice) to add some flavor. It was pretty good! Like the quinoa Sam wrote about last night, we ate this grain completely by itself, as opposed to pairing it with vegetables, a meat, or any other recipe. If you like rice, you would like both of these grains - and they're a lot better for you!
