Swiss Melt with Bacon and Artichoke Hearts

As always, apologies for the lack of posts due to a busy travel schedule!  But I'm back with a sandwich that we actually made a few weeks ago and that I've just been too lazy to write about.  This one comes to us from Great Grilled Cheese. 

Has anyone heard that there's an impending bacon shortage coming to us in about a year?  Well, bearing that in mind it seems wise to go ahead with cooking the bacon-filled sandwiches sooner rather than later.  So let's get right down to the Swiss Melt with Bacon and Artichoke Hearts.

We started out with the following ingredients:

* 6-8 ounces Swiss cheese (Gruyere in this case)
* 4 slices of bacon
* 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
* 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
* 1 jar (6.5 oz) marinated artichoke hearts
* 1 small onion (thinly sliced)
* Pepperidge Farm Sourdough
* Olive oil

First up we mixed together the horseradish and mustard.

And then started cooking the bacon until it was nice and crispy!

Once that was done I removed the bacon to let it drain on a plate with a paper towel and started cooking the sliced onion in the pan with the bacon grease until they were limp and starting to brown.

Once the onions were done the bacon had cooled enough for us to break it into chunks.

We also cut the artichoke hearts into quarters.

And with that all of the ingredients were ready!  To assemble the sandwiches we started by spreading the horseradish/mustard on four slices of bread:

Followed by the artichokes:

And the bacon:

And the onions:

And finally the cheese:



 

After completing the sandwich and brushing the exterior with olive oil they were ready to be grilled and soon were finished!

Taste Review:

Looking over the sandwich we first made note of the unique colors.  We haven't used artichoke hearts before, so their shade of green gives a new tint to the sandwich filling.  The bacon is a nice dark color to contrast the light onions, artichokes, and cheese.  In addition to providing some nice color contrast, the bacon also gives the sandwich a good crunch, which blends well with the creaminess of the cheese.

The onions are nice and sweet-- I never tire of using sauteed onions on a sandwich!  As for overall taste, I taste mostly artichokes while Colin tastes mostly bacon (although we did put more bacon on his sandwiches than on mine since he likes it more than I do).  For me the artichokes make it very savory even though the bacon and onions are both sweet.

I was a little nervous about using horseradish, but the horseradish/dijon wasn't strong at all.  I thought the spice would overpower all of the other ingredients, but it was actually just a nice enhancement to the other flavors.  On the whole this sandwich was reminiscent of the Italian Ham and Cheese.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Swiss Melt with Bacon and Artichoke Hearts
Gooey-ness:	3.5
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Colorful with a unique color in particular from the artichokes.
Taste:	A-

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!