I originally had this dip at my brother-in-law's house. His wife made this for an appetizer for my mother-in-law's birthday celebration. I could not believe how wonderful it was! Of course I immediately had to snag the recipe!
My not-so-dear MIL's birthday is right after Christmas. She has a problem with this. In fact she hates it. She hates that her birthday is overshadowed by Christmas. To add further insult to injury, she is a twin, so she has had to share her birthday her entire life. She was 63 at that point. Luckily, that was the last birthday we would be forced to celebrate with her. Hurray!
It was H's first Christmas and we were all sick. Mr. Smith had pneumonia as did The Monkey. Like always, my mother was sick too, but kept insisting she was so glad she didn't get it. However, she kept complaining about being achy, cold, runny nose, etc. Hmmm...good thing she never caught the cold. She sooooo had the cold, but will never ever ever ever admit that she is sick.
It was one of those colds that just hangs on forever and ever. We were all sick for a month. It was so sad. There are no pictures of our son's first Christmas because we were all so miserable. We pretty much just opened gifts and went to our separate corners and licked our respective wounds.
Anyway, we were all still sick. Mr. Smith was nursing a pretty nasty fever/cough. H was still a complete mess (low-grade fever, cough, runny nose, etc.) and I was just getting over the dreaded cold.
No excuses would be accepted. This was another in a long series of command performances! So, off we went to suffer.
The ONLY saving grace was this dip and some phenomenal cupcakes (that I had dragged my sad butt up to Newport Beach to procure for the occasion). Otherwise, the evening was total bust.
It is not as greasy as some other artichoke dips I have tried. This is nice and creamy and has just enough of a kick to make it interesting.
Artichoke Dip with Zip
2 cans artichoke hearts in water
8 ozs. (1 box) cream cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 can diced jalapenos (4-6 ozs. depending on your preference)
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Chop artichokes and jalapenos in food processor. Mix all other ingredients together. Add artichoke jalapeno mixture and mix well.
Spread in an oven safe baking dish and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
Serve with sourdough bread, crackers or pita chips (Stacy's parmesan are very good with this) or tortilla chips.