Ingredients

The following ingredients have 8 Servings
  • 2 1/2 cups chopped fresh spinach
  • 1 onion diced
  • 1 clove of garlic minced
  • 1 (140 gram) package of goat cheese
  • 3/4 cup sour cream
  • 1/4 cup chopped marinated artichoke hearts
  • 8 slices of cooked bacon crumbled
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 artisan loaf of bread

Instruction

  • Preheat your oven to 300 degrees F.
  • Chop fresh spinach so you end up with about 2 1/2 cups.
  • Dice the onion, and mince the garlic.
  • Then in a skillet, saute the spinach, onion and garlic in a little bit of olive oil. Add the salt and pepper.
  • Cook until the onions are soft, and there is no moisture from the spinach.
  • Stir in the cooked and crumbled bacon, and cook for about 2 more minutes.
  • Remove from the heat.
  • In a food processor (I use a hand blender), puree the goat cheese and sour cream together until smooth.
  • Then add the goat cheese/sour cream mixture and chopped artichoke hearts to the spinach/bacon mix.  Stir until well combined.
  • Now it’s time to prepare your artisan loaf of bread (you can use a sour dough loaf or any kind of large loaf that you like, as long as you can remove the centre portion).
  • Cut out the top of your loaf, cutting in about 1 1/2 inches deep, then peel off the top and remove the centre.  You just want to create a pocket to put your dip, so make sure you don’t cut down too deep into the loaf, but deep enough that the dip won’t flow out of the bread.
  • Save the bread you cut out for dipping.  Just cut it into dipping sized chunks.
  • Add the spinach mixture to the space in your bread bowl, then wrap your bread dip in tin foil, and bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until the mixture is bubbling.
  • You can use the bread bowl as a dip, and serve it with extras chunks of fresh bread or baguettes for dipping.  Or you can slice the whole bread bowl width wise and serve in strips.