Foodie Friday--Pesto Bechamel Pasta

When the weather starts cooling down, I tend to cook more in the kitchen. And most of the items I cook could be termed 'comfort food', which usually translates into creamy, carb-loaded concoctions.
The other day, I looked in the fridge and saw store-bought pesto and some leftover chicken (seasoned with fajita seasoning and grilled few days ago).

Now, pesto can be an overpowering thing since basil is the number one ingredient, along with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and some brands add parmesan cheese and/or pine nuts or almonds. The brand I picked up this time was in the refrigerated section and was far less garlic-y than the brand in the hard goods aisle. I personally don't like the pesto that's this strong, so I will find ways to dilute the intensity.

So my idea was to make a chicken, pesto, pasta thing. And then I remembered my Chicken Lasagna recipe. I had to make a few changes, because the sauce was just a hair too thin for the pound of noodles that I cooked--I added about three large spoonfuls of grated parmesan cheese, which was about 3/4 cup.

Here's the recipe:

Pesto Béchamel Pasta

4 Tbls. butter
1/2 cup flour
3 cups milk
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup basil pesto
leftover chicken--sliced
salt
pepper

Place pot of water with salt for the pasta on stove, on high, as you begin to make the béchamel sauce. Cook pasta al dente according to pasta directions.

In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add flour and stir, cooking for about 2 minutes. Slowly add milk, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Simmer about 2-4 minutes. Add pesto, salt and pepper. Adjust seasoning. Add chicken.

If the sauce is finished before pasta, place a lid on it to keep warm.

Drain pasta. Add to sauce mixture. Fold pasta into mixture. If sauce is too thin, add grated parmesan cheese until desired thickness.

Serve with side of green salad.

Tips & Tricks:

• taste your pesto before you add it. Some brands are loaded with garlic or salt, and you don't want to over season your meal
• the roux will seem chunky after the flour is added, just keep stirring so it doesn't burn. Turn down heat just a little to help keep it from burning
• I use skim milk, but if you want a richer sauce use whole milk. If you don't have whole milk (I don't), add a little cream in place of some of the milk. Instead of 3 cups of milk, use 2 cups of skim milk and one cup of cream
• season intelligently. If you don't like nutmeg, don't add nutmeg. If your pesto is salty, then don't add salt until after you mix in the pesto to see if you need to add any salt.  
• I use a whisk instead of a spoon to stir, since whisks break up lumps.
• I didn't have fettuccine noodles, so I used some trumpets. The shapes are fun, but they took a little longer to cook than thinner noodles.
• The sauce was too thin for these noodles, so I added a couple large spoonfuls of grated parmesan cheese to help thicken it slightly.

And this is another recipe that my family demolished in less than 24 hours.

Enjoy!

Foodie Friday -- Creamy Pesto Lasagna

I found this recipe in Food TV magazine. It looked good so I decided to try this recipe. It’s a winner! The family polished off the leftovers in two days, so it’s a keeper.

This makes 12 servings. 

Creamy Pesto Lasagna

Béchamel sauce:

4 Tbls. Butter

¼ cup flour

3 cups whole milk

¼ tsp. nutmeg

½ cup purchased basil pesto

Salt and Black pepper to taste

Lasagna:

1 15-ounce package ricotta cheese

1 cup grated Parmesan

½ purchased basil pesto

12 dry, flat, no-boil lasagna noodles

3 cups diced rotisserie chicken

4 cups shredded, part-skim mozzarella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For the béchamel, melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in milk and nutmeg, bring to a simmer, and cook 2 minutes more. Remove from heat, stir in ½ cup pesto; season with salt and pepper.

For the ricotta mixture, stir together ricotta, Parmesan, and ½ cup pesto; season with salt and pepper.

Assembling the lasagna:

Spread 2/3 cup béchamel in bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Lay 3 lasagna sheets side-by-side. Top with ½ cup ricotta mixture, ¾ cup chicken, 2/3 cup béchamel, and ¾ cup mozzarella. Repeat layering three more times, topping the final layer with 1 ½ cups mozzarella. Cover lasagna with foil.

Bake lasagna until bubbly, about 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake lasagna 15 minutes more, then broil on high until golden, 2-3 minutes. Let lasagna rest 15 minutes before serving.

Tips & Tricks:

·         I didn't have whole milk, so I used skim milk along with a little bit of heavy cream to make up the 3 cups.

·         The recipe called for refrigerated basil pesto, but I couldn't find it, so I found jarred basil pesto in the pasta aisle. I bought two 8.1 ounce jars because I couldn’t remember how much was needed. I did need the second jar when I actually measured it out.

·         I didn’t use rotisserie chicken, though it would have made this recipe really easy. Instead I grilled two very large chicken breasts that I seasoned with Cavender’s Greek seasoning.

·         Yeah, I don’t follow the “4 cups of Mozzarella cheese” number. I bought an 8 cup package and almost used the entire package.

·         The béchamel sauce is pretty easy to make, so freak out about it. Be sure to taste the sauce AFTER you add the pesto but BEFORE you salt it. The pesto I bought was pretty salty, so I didn’t really have to salt the sauce.

·         Depending on the store bought pesto, it might be very, very garlicy. . . the brand I bought was (Classico), but the family didn’t care.

·         Have everything prepared to make quick work of layering the lasagna

Enjoy!

Later, Peeps!