Chicken and Kale Pasta Bake

This is a recipe loosely based on a vegan recipe from Dr. John McDougall called Baked Penne Florentine found in one of his most recent books, The Starch Solution.  I like Dr. McDougall, but we have no problem with eating animal foods, hence the addition of the chicken.  If you wanted to keep it strictly vegan, omit the chicken and add more veggies or more beans, or both!

some beautiful locally grown kale

This fed my family of 4 for dinner with enough leftovers for lunch for 3 the next day.

Ingredients

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken tenders

8-10 oz. penne pasta (we use brown rice pasta)

1 large bunch kale

For the Sauce:

1/2 cup raw cashews

1 1/2 cup water

1 Tbl sweet white miso

1 Tbl lemon juice

2 Tbl soy sauce

1/4 tsp mustard powder

1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped

1 can white beans, divided

Set your oven to 350 degrees and bake your tenders until no longer pink, about 30 minutes.  While this is happening, de-stem, rinse and chop your kale.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the pasta and the kale.  Allow to cook together as long as the pasta needs to until done.  Drain and set aside.

To make the sauce:

Blend the cashews and water on high speed until smooth.  (A Vitamix works great for this).  Add the rest of the sauce ingredients, including half of the can of white beans to the blender and blend again until smooth.  

Now toss together the cooked pasta, kale, chicken that you removed from the oven and chopped into bite size pieces, the other half of the can of white beans and the sauce.  Mix well and pour into a 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, or until the top is hot and bubbling.  Serve hot with fresh parmesan and a side of sliced heirloom tomatoes.