Sanaria's Love: Chicken and Vegetable Lasagne

Lasagne is one of my all time favourite foods. I could have it at least once a week...BUT only if I make it myself. I don't like lasagne that's too dry, or undercooked lasagne sheets....I must admit I have never made the sauce for it myself, I always buy Dolmio Tomato Sauce and Dolmio Creamy Sauce for it. I will make these sauces myself one day and I will post it onto here and let you all know what it tasted like. So stay tuned for future lasagne recipes (all home made).

For now, this is how I make my special lasagne for my family....

Chicken and Vegetable Lasagne:

Ingredients:

750-900g chicken thigh (depending how much chicken you like), no skin, boiled in water for 40 min, then cooled and meat de-boned and shredded
2 tbsp Garlic Italian seasoning (if you do not have this, or cant find this, just use some finely chopped garlic and some oregano)
1 large jar Dolmio Tomato Sauce (you can use a small one if you like it a bit dryer, personally I like it saucy)
Egg Pasta Lasagne sheets
1 large jar Dolmio Creamy Sauce (once again you can use a small one if you like it a bit dryer, personally I like it saucy)
1 jar Roasted red pepper, you can use the whole jar if its less than 500g
1/2 Onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 chicken stock cube
2 medium sized courgettes, sliced diagonally,
2 stalks celery
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp full slivered fresh basil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Grated cheese, as much as you like

Instructions:

The first thing you need to do is boil the chicken for about 40 min on medium heat, once cooked (dont worry if its still a little pink because you will be cooking it further in the oven once the lasagne is finished), you de-bone the chicken and shred it to medium bite sized portions.

You then add 3 tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to a cooking pot and once the oil is hot, add the chicken alongside the Garlic Italian seasoning. fry this for about 2 minutes.

You then go ahead and add the chopped celery, a pinch of salt and pepper, and fry this for another minute or so, and then set aside in a bowl.

Heat up another 3 tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil in that same pan and fry the crushed garlic until a little golden, and then remove it. This is to flavour and fragrance the oil a little bit. Fry the onions for a couple of minutes, and add the chicken and celery back. You also add the Dolmio tomato sauce, soya sauce, Worcestershire sauce and chicken stock cube. Put the lid on and let this simmer on very low heat while you grill the courgettes.

Grill the courgettes with a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil on a grill pan for roughly 3min each side until you get nice grill lines on them and they start to soften a little bit, not too much because you still want a bit of crunch left in them.

Once they are done, remove them from the grill and put onto a plate .

Get your baking dish. The first layer is the white sauce first, and some of the red sauce as I have shown you above. Then one layer of lasagne sheets, half of the courgettes spread all over, and some roasted red pepper and some basil.

Then you add a layer of the red sauce, and a layer of the white sauce. No need to be perfect, you just do it roughly, it will all blend well once cooked. But you have to make sure that the lasagne sheets have sauce on them so that they can soak it up and get soft.

You continue this way of layering until you end you with sauce as the last layer.

Put the lasagne in the oven on 225C, Gas mark 6, 425F for about 30 minutes or until the lasagne sheets are cooked. Use a sharp knife and stick the knife in the middle and the edges to check if they are cooked.