With autumn mists and fall harvest fruits and vegetables available, I've been enjoying taking advantage as much as possible of what's on offer. Planning a white lasagna, I was excited to realise that I had part of a pumpkin that needed using and some apples in the fruit bowl. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but seeing as everyone at the table (including someone who is not Hubby and therefore is less biased) had seconds, I thought it was probably worth posting. For this, I specially grilled a chicken in the air fryer (I love how easy that was) but normally I would have used leftover chicken from a roast dinner or something.
Ingredients:
2 - 2 1/2 c chicken, shredded
3 onions (small) diced
2 apples, diced
2 c spinach or (2 cubes frozen spinach)
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp sage
1 tsp orange peel
1 - 2 c whey
1 tsp sumac
1/4 c butter
1 zucchini, thinly sliced along its length
1 2 inch pumpkin wedge, thinly sliced
2 1/2 c ricotta
1 1/2 c parmesan, grated
Lasagna sheets
1 tomato, sliced
1) In a saucepan, melt the butter then sweat the onions. Add apple, spinach, sumac, orange peel and sage and cook until apple is beginning to soften. Add chicken and enough whey to moisten but not drown the sauce.
2) Melt remaining butter. Brush an ovenproof dish and begin layering: zucchini, chicken and apple sauce, pumpkin, pasta brushed with butter, ricotta, parmesan, repeat. End on a layer of ricotta, parmesan and then sliced tomatoes.
3) Bake at 180°C for about 45minutes until a knife goes in easily and the top is golden and molten.
This was really tasty, but I made it a little too wet. I have a bit of a hard time judging the right level of moistness in a white lasagna sauce. It was just right on the second go when we reheated it though! I had thought of using apple sauce in the chicken sauce instead of the whey (which, incidentally, you can replace with stock if you don't have whey lying around), but decided not to this time. I had also considered adding some warm autumnal spicing, given that I was using pumpkin and apple, but didn't. Maybe next time.