Please educate me on Artichokes. How do you pick them, how do you prepare them and how do you eat them?

Ok....quick artichoke 101
You pick them out by choosing the ones that are the tightest. You want a good color green and the tips of the leaves should be tight against the entire bulb. To clean them, cut off the tiny tops of each leaf, they have thorn like part that can hurt. cut off the bottom stem leaving only like 1/4 of an inch on the bottom. To cook them, I was raised to boil them in water w/ a little salt and olive oil. I know you can grill them, but I have never done that so maybe someone else can help you if you interested in that. And then, as far as eatting them. I just pluck off the leaves, one at a time, and run my teeth along the bottom of the leaf to get the meat. When you get down to the fuzzy part, scrap it out with a spoon. What's left is the "heart" of the artichoke. I cut that up and eat it with a fork. I usually dip it in mayo or a mix of mayo and soy sauce.
ENJOY!!!!

I agree with everything but the mayo (not a mayo fan) I dip it in butter (i can't believe its not butter fat free) or a lite salad dressing. The heart of the artichoke is my favorite part. Yum!!!

I'm lazy and I don't like to deal with all that prickly stuff - I like to buy the bags of frozen artichoke hearts from Trader Joe's. I sometimes cook up a bag of these in some chicken stock with some salt & pepper and put it in the blender. I add about 1/4 cup of half & half and this makes a great cream of artichoke soup.

TJ's also have some great pickled artichoke bottoms that are only 20 calories each.

I've never tasted an artichoke. Does the flavor resemble another vegetable?

Artichokes have a flavor all of their own. I can't think of anything that tastes like them! Maybe you could get a small jar of marinated artichoke hearts and try them (they have them in most supermarkets). They are a good addition chopped up in a salad.

Artichokes are high in fiber and very good for you:

"The plant chemical called cynarin, found in artichoke leaves, is what stimulates bile secretion. Doctors used synthetic cynarin preparations to treat high cholesterol from the 1950s to the 1980s (until more advanced drugs like statins were developed).

The plant also contains luteolin, an antioxidant that may play a role in lowering LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels."

Thanks! I was worried they would taste like cauliflower or something equally as hideous

Artichokes definitely sound worth exploring

Nope, nothing like cauliflower!

I like to make a dip for mine of 1 tbsp of mayo, garlic seasoning, and another table spoon of dijon mustard. It makes it feel like you are really eating mayo.

A great name for a rock band - pickled artichoke bottoms

I get bottled artichoke hearts - just make sure they are packed in water, not oil! They are great for tossing into veggie stir fry or with pasta.

I like fresh ones steamed, too - but they are a bit of work.

Hi Gina (I like your new avatar pic by the way)

That name (pickled artichoke bottoms) is probably already taken!

We had some artichoke soup tonight (I found a couple of bags in the freezer that were very cruddy looking but they turned out great in the soup). It was soooo filling and very low cal.

I'll have to try them in a stir fry some time.

you can also wrap the cleaned chokes in plastic wrap and microwave them for a few minutes to steam them.

I use the method that hmacneil6 uses, only instead of just butter to dip it in, I add some garlic. Holy yum. Now I want an artichoke.

A great appatizer for that evening of romance can be very seductive the way you have to eat them. I dip them in an olive & mayo sauce - Mayo, 1 jar green olives, chopp up 1/2 jar of olives throw in a pot with 2 cups mayo and pour in some of the olive juice to thin and cook until hot - this is also great with broccoli!! yummy.

I got the below of a website - on how to eat artichokes:

Peel off a leaf, dip the bottom, inside (grayish pulpy) into the sauce lightly. Place it practically all the way to the hilt in your open mouth.
Close mouth, with teeth lightly together on the leaf, and pull the leaf out, scraping the soft underside of the leaf off so it stays in your mouth, while the fibery rest of the leaf come out as you pull.

Now move it around in your mouth like a good wine, make full on contact with your taste buds, chew, and swallow, continue around, leaf by leaf, as they get smaller, and you come to the inedible hair like thistles. Take those out, just lift them up and out of the button bottom.

A Medium Artichoke
25 Calories

3 g Protein

6 g Carbohydrate

0 g Fat

75 mg Sodium

185 g Potassium

4 g Dietary Fiber

10% RDA of Vitamin C