Cheesy Chicken Stuffed Artichokes and Peppers

I'm a sucker for anything on sale. While I was at the grocery store last week they had loaves of marble bread that had that day's sale-by date for $0.50 so I picked one up. I figured at least it would make some good toast, but it has actually come in pretty useful. Last week K and I used it for some bruschetta while the stew was pressure cooking. I still have a couple slices left so I plan on making some breadcrumbs and used it last night for the stuffing for this recipe.


Although I have no idea how to cook artichokes or if I really like them, my mom does and I found a step by step guide online that made it seem manageable. As Matil can attest to, once I started actually cooking the artichokes I had 0 confidence that they would even come out edible and I thought it would be a fiasco to rival K's spicy green risotto, but it actually was delicious. 

• 4 medium to large artichokes and/or peppers
• 1 lemon
• 1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced
• 3/4 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream)
• 1/3 cup mushrooms, diced (I used 3 cremini mushrooms)
• 1/3 cup onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup feta cheese (or any other cheese)
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup chicken broth

     
1. Rinse the artichokes.
2. Cut off their stems.

Don't be fooled by how weird it looks. 

3. Cut about 3/4 of an inch to an inch off the tip of the artichoke.
4. Using scissors, cut the tips off of all of the leaves.
5. Rub every part of the artichoke with a lemon.  This keeps it from turning colors.
6. Place in a large pot, stem side up.
7. Fill pot with about 2 inches of water.  Place over heat and bring to a boil.  Once a boil is reached, reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 25-35 minutes or until the outer leaves can easily be pulled off.
8. While your artichokes are cooking, saute mushrooms, onions, and garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until tender.
9. In a large bowl combine, diced chicken, yogurt, mushroom/onion mixture, bread crumbs, thyme, feta, salt, and pepper.  Mix it up and set aside.
10. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
11. Once they are cool enough to work with, start spreading the leaves out. 
12. Once you get it all opened up, spoon out the inedible fuzzy part called the choke.
13. Place the prepared artichokes into a baking dish.  Pour 1/2 cup broth into the bottom of the pan.
14. Stuff the artichokes with the chicken mixture.
15. Really pack it in there and then toss it into the preheated oven until heated all the way through.  Around 20-30 minutes.


Notes:
These instructions are extremely step by step and make a lot more sense when looking at the individual pictures. I thought finding what was the choke and what wasn't was the hardest part of the whole ordeal but I think I have it now. 
http://scarboroughfoodfair.blogspot.com/2012/03/chicken-stuffed-artichokes.html
Useful information on how to eat an artichoke: 
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_cook_and_eat_an_artichoke/


I was fairly skeptical on this whole artichoke thing and had an older pepper in my fridge, so I decided to stuff that too as Plan B. Since the pepper didn't go through the whole simmer on the stove process I just kept it in the oven until it started to brown, which was about the same amount of time it took to eat the artichoke. The artichoke ended up being delicious and the pepper will be lunch or dinner one day this weekend. 


I'm excited about this filling too. It tastes super rich because of the yogurt and bread but I had nonfat plain yogurt in my fridge and only used 2 slices of bread for both the artichoke and the pepper so I suppose it's a pretty low cal meal. 


If you wanted to make a vegetarian version of this, I would sub the chicken broth for veggie (duh) and use a grain instead of the chicken.