Chicken Tetrazagne

Chicken what?

I pronounce it "tet-ra-ZAHN-yah," in case you're curious.

I had roasted a great big chicken recently and we had a lot of leftovers, so I thought I'd make chicken tetrazzini one night. And chicken stock with the bones.

But. I already had a ton of dishes to do and I didn't want any more than I really, really needed to. Which meant I didn't want to use a pot to boil up spaghetti.

So. I had those Barilla no-boil lasagne noodles in the pantry and thought I'd make a lasagne-ish tetrazzini. Or a tetrazzini-ish lasagne.

So that meant I'd only dirty a pot for the sauce and a pan for the lasagne. Yay!

As you can see, my counters are a bit overcrowded.

And that's the tidy area. What? The cat food? Oh, yeah, it absorbs excess liquid and provides extra calcium and other nutrients. I used about a quarter cup.

Okay, not really.

Here's what I really did.

I melted half a stick of butter in a big pot...

And then I whisked in a quarter cup of flour which makes...anyone?...that's right - a roux.

To that, I added a about 2 and a half cups of chicken stock, a cup of white wine, and the rest of the gravy I'd made when we first had the chicken. Once that started bubbling, I stirred in the chicken (maybe about 3 cups or a bit more) and the leftover vegetables - in this case, grilled string beans (about half a cup), and potatoes and onions I'd roasted in the pan with the chicken (about a cup and a half of them). And once everything was heated through, I stirred in a cup of cream.

Now for the assembly...

I poured a couple of tablespoons of chicken stock in a 13 x 9 inch pyrex baking dish, swirled it around to coat the bottom of the dish, and then placed a layer of the lasagne noodles over that.

Then I ladled in a third of the chicken mixture...

then another layer of noodles, half the remaing chicken, more noodles, and then the last of the chicken.

(Yes. I see them. Sloppy drips I should have wiped off the edge of the pan. Sorry.)

And before it went in the oven, I topped it with about 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup of grated parmesan cheese.

I also sprinkled paprika on top, but that image didn't come out too good, and these shots are wonky enough with the ugly lighting.

I baked the whole thing at 350 degrees for about 35-45 minutes - til it's golden brown on top and all bubbly and hot.

Here's a glimpse of the edge of the pan (because my picture of the top looked horrible).

Mmmm...goopy and bubbly and comforty.

Let it sit about ten minutes to set - if you can. And then go on and dish it up.

The kids liked it - Julia especially liked the pasta. Alex especially liked the chicken and the rest of the inner glop. (I mean "glop" in the yummiest possible way.) Bill had his later - he had played a wedding and didn't get home til later. And he said he wasn't all that hungry, at first, but said he'd have a little, probably because of the "What do you mean you're not HUNGRY??? After I worked for hours and hours and hours slaving away on this?????" look on my open-book face.

And then he went for seconds.