Artichokes – A Quick Dinner

John and I have been wanting to have something with artichokes for dinner, but since I have never used them in cooking, I had put it off for quite awhile. I had no idea what to make! Earlier this week, I went to Real Simple’s website and searched their recipes for something with artichokes. I found this recipe for Artichoke Pizza with Lemony Green Bean Salad.

Photo from RealSimple.com

I decided to try it since it looked pretty simple, and wow! it was delicious! It was also extremely fast to fix. Once you have the almonds chopped, it takes less than 10 minutes to make. In my opinion, the red peppers act as a kind of tomato sauce, so I was liberal with those. Oh, and one tip: be careful not to overdo it on the lemon juice on your green bean salad. I made that mistake the first night, and they were a bit too tangy for our taste.

Bonus: there’s only 457 calories per serving, so I did not feel guilty whatsoever about having double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for dessert.

If you try this recipe, let me know what you think of it. I’m definitely adding it to my regular recipe repertoire (oooh alliteration!).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Today is also “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Don’t skip this week’s – I have some pretty big announcements listed below!! Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week. I’m going to end with our highs this week, because I want to end on a happy note 🙂

Our Lows:

• Yesterday, I was so overwhelemed by driving back and forth to John’s work 4 times (yes, 4 and it’s 30-40 minutes round trip), plus taking care of Béni who has seemed to hit a “terrible 2’s” sort of stage, and dealing with “post clean up” that I started crying around 6 PM when John called me to come pick him up from work. I was just so frustrated that I had been trying to make the bed, do the dishes, and get some homework done all day but everything else had to come first.
• My left arm has been hurting a lot for the past few weeks. I think it’s from carrying Béni up and down 2.5 flights of stairs several times a day. (He now weighs about 26 lbs.) Yesterday, my arm gave out twice while carrying him and I dropped him, which upset me even more. John thinks it’s tendonitis.
• This one is kind of a mixed high and low: several of my friends have recently gotten engaged (yay, high!), but I am really bummed that I cannot be there for them during the planning process. I’m also sad that we have already had to miss so many weddings of our good friends.

Our Highs:

• We have made plans for our one year anniversary!! We are going to Paris for a 4-day weekend the week before our anniversary. I’m really excited to be able to see Paris in the spring since last time we were there it was December/January (2007-2008). We have already made reservations to have dessert late one night on the patio of a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower with a great view as well as dinner reservations at a restaurant we LOVED last time we were there.
• We put in a request for an exception to policy so we could move to the other housing area, which is actually in town. It got approved!!! (We weren’t optimistic about it going through.) The move will allow John walk to work and I can have the car to run errands and also drive myself to work should I ever get a job offer (that’s a whole other deal…). Additionally, that housing area is right near the metro system (the Straßenbahn), so we’ll be able to utilize public transportation to get downtown now instead of navigating the narrow streets and parking garages in our big Xterra. We don’t know when we will get to move because we’re at the bottom of the list, but it will happen eventually. Yay!
• Béni is dreaming and just started barking in his sleep. It’s the cutest little “woof” ever. I love him.
• In light of my frustrations yesterday, I had John take the car so I didn’t have to drive back and forth this morning and to bring him lunch. So far today I have done the following (and it’s only 12:22 PM):

1. showered, blow dried and straightened my hair and put on make up
2. made the bed
3. taken my graduation gown and hood out of the bag and put them on a hanger (yay for getting these!!)
4. put away some dirty clothes
5. dusted the bookshelves, tv, entertainment area, coffee table and one side table
6. walked Béni
7. gone to the store and gotten lunch and dinner
8. started baking chocolate chip cookies for John’s office
9. got the air conditioner working again
10. read a couple blogs
11. updated this blog

and I still want to:

1. schoolwork for tomorrow
2. work on a friend’s website
3. reply to emails
4. clean the bathtub
5. address my graduation announcements
6. prepare Mother’s Day cards for mailing
7. get my mom’s Mother’s Day gift ready to go
8. get oil changed

So…that’s it for me. I know it’s quite a list. Hopefully, I’ll get it done! What are your highs and lows for the week?

– Sarah