Chicken & Artichoke Lasagna

First off, isn't "lasagna" a weird word? I looked at it fifty times before I was sure I spelled it correctly. Not sure I've ever made lasagna, start to finish, before, though it is one of Doug's favorite dishes. It's just so time consuming and huge! No way is our little family of 3 going to eat a 9x13 pan full of pasta and meat. I guess we could freeze it. Why not? I do that with everything else.

Anyway, this week's lasagna appealed to me because it is a smaller recipe (says it serves 6, really it could probably serve 8 people with side dishes) and doesn't take 3 hours to make. However the recipe PTB (powers-that-be) cheat a little by having the chicken pre-cooked, which is what takes a while.

Doug, Tyler, guest-judge Allan (Doug's brother) and I agreed that while this recipe wasn't bad, it wasn't fantastic either. Probably not worth the effort that goes into making it. It was just a little bland. Doug said it was more like a chicken casserole than a true lasagna since it didn't have cheese. Maybe it could use a little Parmesan? I'll post the recipe below. Try it out, make some changes and post a comment with your results.

• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 stalks celery, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 1 yellow onion, diced medium
• 5 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 3 cups shredded cooked chicken
• 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped marinated artichoke hearts, divided, plus 1 Tbsp marinade
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
• 6 no-boil lasagna noodles

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a saucepan, melt butter over medium. Add celery and onion; cook until translucent, 5 minutes. Stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Increase heat and slowly stir in broth. Bring to a boil, stirring, and cook until liquid thickens, 1 minute. Remove form heat. Stir in chicken and 1/2 cup artichokes; season with salt and pepper. Mix breadcrumbs with marinade; season with salt and pepper.

Spread 1/2 cup chicken mixture in a 2 quart baking dish. Top with 2 noodles and 1 1/2 cups chicken mixture; repeat. Top with remaining 2 noodles, chicken mixture and 1 cup artichokes, then scatter breadcrumbs on top. Bake until top is deep golden brown, 30 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes.

NOTES: I always try to use the low-sodium chicken broth because store bought broths tend to be pretty salty. Doug couldn't figure out how to shred the chicken easily without it taking forever so he just chopped it into bite size pieces and I think it did alright. I'm also not quite sure how big a 2 quart baking dish is, but we used our 9x9 pan. Is that 2 quarts? Maybe I should check the bottom of the dish when I get around to cleaning it....

Serves: 6
Prep Time: 20 min
Total Time: 1 hr

Recipe from Martha Stewart Living