Hot Artichoke Dip - For Cold Winter Evenings.

I am living in hope that the weather is going to get wintery here on The Farm.  I am trying to get the Weather Gods on my side in lots of different ways.  Last week was the great gum boot buy up.  This week I am going to devote my time to winter food.  So I have decided to share a recipe for one of my favourite and ridiculously easy dips.  This is great as a shared starter for a casual winter dinner party.

So easy, so yummy, so full of fat.

Now, a quick word of warning.  I made this up after tasting it at a friend's house and so the quantities are very approximate. I have made it many times though and it is a very forgiving recipe. My suggestion would be to taste it at the end and add more of anything you need.

Grab your food processer.  Add a cup of mayonnaise, a cup of sour cream (reduced fat sour cream is fine but reduced fat mayo makes the result a bit manky), half a cup of grated parmesan and some spring onions roughly chopped.  Drain a jar of artichoke hearts (I think the jar is about 300-400g or similar) and add them too.  Sprinkle in some salt and pepper.  Blitz it all together so the artichokes are broken down but still lumpy.

Pre Mixing

Place the whole lot in an oven proof dish and sprinkle more parmesan over the top and then some sweet paprika.

Pre Oven

Pop it in the oven and warm it up.  It can be kept warm in a low oven and pulled out just as your guests arrive so you look like an uber hostess who channels Nigella on a regular basis.  I serve this with roughly cut up bits of french stick.  I have resorted to triangles of normal bread toasted when french stick is not available.  It is very yummy and goes beautifully with red wine in front of the fire.

So - how about it Weather Gods?  Are you up for a cold front anytime soon?  Work with me here.