Artichoke-Stuffed Artichoke

I love artichoke.  As a kid, our standard way of eating it was to boil/steam the whole artichoke until cooked and serve with very garlicky melted butter to dip each leaf in and then scrape the soft buttery garlicky artichoke meat off each individual leaf, getting a bigger and bigger bite as we got to the more and more tender leaves toward the middle.  I still love to eat artichoke this way (although now I use tallow instead of butter).  My husband however, does not like to eat food that is this much work for each bite, although he loves the flavor of artichoke.  For a quick meal at home, I love to sauté frozen artichoke hearts in butter or tallow with garlic for an easier-to-eat version.  But sometimes, I like to get fancy.

This stuffed artichoke recipe is a Paleo adaptation of one I used to make for company and special occasions.  The original version of the filling was inspired both by a hot artichoke dip that our friends used to make for us and serve with nachos every time we went to their house and by a hot artichoke and spinach dip that was our usual appetizer selection at one of our favorite restaurants.  You can use fresh spinach as the recipe suggests (the 2 cups fresh chopped spinach would be roughly equivalent to 1 cup frozen chopped spinach) or substitute any mild tasting leafy green (since this is really just for adding bulk to the filling).  A sweet kale like lancinato kale would work as would turnip greens or sweet potato greens (I actually used sweet potato greens for the version of this recipe in the photo).

Making stuffed artichoke is a substantial amount of work (mostly in scraping the meat off the inner leaves for the stuffing).  However, one of the things I love about this dish (other than the fact that is it ridiculously delicious and beautiful) is that all of the work can be done in advance.  That’s my main criteria for any dish I want to serve to company.  If it can be mostly made in advance, then I don’t have to be frantically cooking in the kitchen instead of visiting.  You could put everything together in the morning or even the day before.  This recipe is for 4 stuffed artichokes but could easily scale up if you want.

This recipe also uses a variation of Paleo mayonnaise (made with half bacon fat! Yum!).  For homemade mayo trouble shooting, see this recipe.  Also, if you wanted to make this bacon fat mayo for other purposes, you could substitute apple cider vinegar for half or all of the lemon juice (the lemony flavor works extra well with the artichoke).

The bacon requirements for this recipe basically amount to cooking up an entire pound of bacon, but enjoying about ¾ of the bacon for your breakfast.  I saved the crispiest bits of bacon, about one quarter of it, and all of the fat for this recipe. I used a pound of sugar-free bacon ends from US Wellness Meats and I cannot remember the last time I had such perfect bacon. When I’m cooking a whole pound of bacon, I like to simply lay the strips (or ends) on a large baking sheet, throw into a cool oven and then set the oven to 400F.  Depending on the thickness of the bacon, it’s ready anywhere between when the oven is finished preheating about about 5 minutes later.