Cleaning and Cooking Abalone

Today was my mother's 5oth birthday. As a big surprise, my sister ordered really expensive abalone, her favorite food that she hasn't had in years. For seventy bucks, you'd think that they would at least clean the things for us or maybe take them out of their shells?

Wrong!

Here's a picture of the cute little things as we got them. They had just died an hour ago. (At least we knew they were fresh).

And they were so freaking small!

It was my job to be the beast and take the organs and gooey stuff out because my sister has problem with organs and bodily fluids of sea snails.

And I was BEAST!! I grabbed those organs and I took them off the meat and I scrubbed the black stuff off of them. But it took a LONG time and we barely got any meat. My sister was totally ripped off. She may have a sensitive stomach but she certainly does not have a sensitive mouth. She will be contacting the supplier. Here comes Hurricane Megan!

But mom loved them anyway. We were afraid to cook them because they were so small and delicate so we waited for her to get home to do it. She was so surprised. She thought we were just going to take her to Applebee's.

She said it was her best birthday ever! I also made her favorite dessert: pineapple upside-down cake. It was my first time making it and she said I did perfect on it! I'm so happy. It was so cute too because we got balloons and a "Happy Birthday" streamer.

Here's pictures:

Before cleaning, after cleaning and the cake.