Pesto, Chicken & Spinach Lasagna...new family fave!!

A few months ago I was making chicken parm and there was a recipe for chicken, spinach and pesto lasagna on the mozzarella package that looked really delish...so I cut it out and stashed it in my recipe folder.  This folder is sometimes a place where recipes go to die but seeing as I'm back in my dinner rut I decided it was time to put this one to the test.  Typically when I try a new dish I follow the recipe exactly and then the next time I make it I will tweak it a bit...so the next time I make this delicious dish, I will be adding more garlic as the original recipe only called for three cloves and it needed much more in my opinion and I will add some mushrooms and other veggies instead of all of the spinach. Like I said, I always tweak after I've tried out the original.

Ingredients:
(12) lasagna noodles (I use the Trader Joe's no boiling noodles)
1 cup onion chopped
3-6 garlic cloves crushed (add as much or as little as you like)
*2 (12oz) packages of frozen spinach OR (1) pkg spinach, (1) shredded carrot, (7) mushrooms sliced, (1) zucchini shredded
3 cups cooked chicken diced (I baked mine in the oven for 25 min. at 350°with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic)
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 large egg
1-1/2 c prepared pesto sauce
3/4 c grated parmesan cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Steps:

Preheat oven to 350°

Spray a 13x9 baking dish with nonstick spray

Heat olive oil in saute pan and cook onions and garlic until transparent.

Add the spinach and cook for (5) minutes.  Add the chicken and cook 

for another (5) minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

In a large bowl mix together the ricotta cheese,

egg, pesto and parmesan until blended.

Add the spinach mixture to the cheese mixture. 

Spread a few tablespoons of the mixture on the bottom

of the baking dish and begin layering.

Lay down (4-6) noodles,

top with 1/3 of the spinach mixture, then

top with 1/3 mozzarella.  Repeat twice.

(if using no cook noodles let sit for 15 minutes

before putting in the oven so the noodles soften

a bit before baking)

Bake for 35-40 minutes...

then dig in!!