"Chicken" or Chickpea Florentine Artichoke Bake

I came up with this recipe by adapting a. meat-based recipe from the newspaper. Those always look so appealing, and with a few tweaks you can have what is appealing about them, and eat healthy too!

A couple of things about this recipe. It may look complicated, as there are several “pieces.” But the only “piece” that is the least bit hard is making a white sauce from scratch; so make sure you have time or are in the mood for that. It’s a good basic recipe to have, and with a few changes, it can be the sauce for a Mac and Cheese bake (you’ll see it again when I post my Mac and Cheese recipe). The other “pieces” of the recipe are so easy: it’s just a matter of cooking the pasta, sautéing some onion and garlic, and combining with all the other ingredients.

The recipe may seem a little decadent, as it calls for a “chicken” cutlet. I sometimes like to use one of those processed plant-based foods to jazz up an otherwise WFPB recipe. (At the time of this posting, Gardein makes a great plant-based “chicken” cutlet, and there are some store brand options such as Wegmans.)

If you don’t want to do that, you can use chickpeas instead. You could also use about 8 0z of seitan, either store-bought or homemade; or use your imagination and choose another “meaty” plant-based ingredient. I suggest adding mushrooms in the Variation on the dish, and if you like mushrooms, you could use a lot of them.

This is a great dish for a chilly evening when you can settle in and enjoy dinner while it’s cold outside.