Chicken, Artichoke, and Kale Lasagna

I don’t know how this happened but I’ve been officially blogging for over a year. Thanks for sticking around. Seriously. It boosts this girl’s ego like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you would believe since you have a blog of your own and are using it for your own personal ego stroking. It could happen.

People like eating. Of that I have no doubt, but not everyone likes to eat like I do, so thanks for that. I can only imagine what trouble we can get into in the next year. It should be a good time.

Alright, enough with the mushy stuff. Let’s talk about pasta. Lasagna specifically. I’ve been craving it like a mad woman lately. I haven’t made it in forever. I made some weird psuedo lasagna rollups with my sister one night a long, long time ago. I’d like to think that doesn’t count. My dad is the lasagna man in the house. We knew if we were having it, and it wasn’t straight from the Hamburger Helper box, it was being made by Dad. Thanks, Dad. This lasagna totally would have done him proud.

I actually made this one up on my own, too. No real inspiration. How’s that for being awesome? I told you that we were on a vegetable kick since San Diego. I had to sneak ’em in. It’s easy to do in a dish like this. The key is to use something that isn’t really watery so you don’t end up with lasagna soup. That’s kind of why I dig no-boil noodles [sorry dad]. It keeps things from getting too mushy because the noodles will gladly be your buffer and suck it up.

I used the food processor to get the onion, garlic, kale, and artichoke hearts into a nice small mince. Cooking became super easy and much more manageable by the bite. I hate when you bite into something, like a lasagna or pizza, and half of the toppings come with each bite. You definitely wouldn’t have to go as small as I did, but it’s definitely my preferred way. I cheated on the sauce and went with a Whole Foods roasted veggie sauce. I didn’t have time to grab all the ingredients when I was at the store the other day to make my own [sidenote: their sweet potato corn chowder is amazing]. I used an almost 50/50 split of fresh mozzarella and parmesan. Feel free to use ricotta or cottage cheese or whatever floats your boat. The same goes for the meat. I used ground chicken. Three layers made our lasagna in a 9×6 pan. I liked it that way. It made for two pieces each. I was full but not about to fall victim to food coma. It was perfect.

Ingredients

• 6 no-bake lasagna noodles
• 1 jar of pasta sauce of choice
• 3/4-1 cup shredded mozzarella
• 3/4-1 cup shredded Parmesan
• 1/2lb ground chicken
• 1/2 onion, chopped into four pieces
• 2 garlic gloves, peeled
• 1 bunch of kale, deveined, rinsed, and torn into pieces
• 1/2 can artichoke hearts
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt, pepper, oregano to taste

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350° and spray a 9×6″ cooking pan with olive oil or other cooking spray.
2. Cook the ground chicken, drain and set aside.
3. In a food processor, add the onion, garlic, kale and artichoke hearts.
4. Pulse a few times until everything is thoroughly combined and minced finely.
5. In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil on medium high heat [I sprayed my pan].
6. Once a drop of water sizzles in the pan, add the kale mixture.
7. Cook a 4-6 minutes until wilted, fragrant, and all excess moisture is gone.
8. Add the ground chicken.
9. Add a handful of each cheese.
10. Stir thoroughly.
11. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano as you see fit.
12. Remove from heat.
13. Lay two noodles down on the pan. You might have to get creative with your layering technique. Mine didn’t quite fit, but it was fine.
14. Add a layer of the meat mixture.
15. Top with tomato sauce.
16. Sprinkle with an abundance of cheese.
17. Continue with the noodle, meat, tomato, and cheese until you’ve finished. I used three layers of noodles, and four layers of everything else. Your last layer should be cheese.
18. Top with more oregano.
19. Place the pan on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 35 minutes.
20. Once cooked, remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes at minimum.
21. Serve alone or with a salad and crusty bread.