Green Lasagna: Artichokes and Mushrooms - Lasagna Verde ai Carciofi e Funghi

Finally I got some nice artichokes and it's already ages I have been dreaming about cooking my green lasagna... Why green? Because the lasagna sheets I use for it are made with spinach and have a green colour. You may say it's a vegetarian lasagna, no meat, just veges... I do understand that in other countries it's not easy to find this type of lasagna sheets but if you cannot find them you may use the white ones. 
 
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 4-6

250g green lasagna sheets
1 big artichoke
400g mushrooms
300-350g mozzarella cheese
100g Parmigiano
2-3 garlic cloves
salt 
EVO oil

 For Bechamel:
0.6-0.7l milk
50g butter
2,5 tbs flour
salt
nutmeg 
  
 First prepare Bechamel sauce. This sauce is widely used in French and Italian cuisine. It is basically a milk sauce thickened with Roux, that is a mix of butter and flour. In the reastaurants they prepare roux in great quantities and keep it in the fridge, they obviously use it to thicken different sauces.  
1. To prepare Roux melt butter in a sauce pan and when it just starts boiling add flour and mix well, keep cooking till the mix will get a nice golden caramel colour. 
2. Heat the milk apart, but don't boil it to avoid forming of the cream film on it.

3. Add milk to the Roux little by little and stir vigorously with a whisk to remove any crumble.
4. Cook over a medium heat constantly stirring for about 5 minutes, by that time the sauce will thicken. But don't forget stirring well!!!
5. At the end season with some salt to taste and half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg. 

6. Pour hot Bechamel into a large bowl and cover it with a plastic film paying attention to adhere the film onto the sauce surface. This will avoid forming of lumps. 
   

Now, we prepare two types of fillings for our lasagna.

1. You may use one big artichoke or couple of small ones. But take the fresh artichokes not the canned ones. Clean artichokes as it is explained HERE. As an alternative you may use frozen artichokes...
2. Slice artichokes finely and cook them with some EVO oil in a frying pan till they are nice and golden. Salt them to taste. If you like you may add some chilli.

3. Clean and chop mushrooms. Cut into halves two garlic cloves.
4. In a separate frying pan heat some EVO oil and brown a bit the onion, add mushrooms and cook them till the golden colour. Take the garlic away.

At this point we are ready to gather our lasagna. 
I use here the green fresh lasagna sheets, if you cannot find these, you may try with the usual white fresh lasagna sheets... if you cannot find these... then use the dry lasagna and check it out on the box if you need to boil the sheets in advance...
1. Prepare mozzarella: squeeze the cheese from it's whey ad cut into small cubes. You may use mozzarella for pizza, the one that is sold without whey. But please, please, don't use grated mozzarella. This Italian cheese doesn't exist grated in Italy and as the cheese is Italian, so.....
2.  Grate Parmigiano cheese finely.

3. Pour some EVO oil into a ceramic/glass pan and spread some Bechamel as well. Here comes the first lasagna sheet.
4. Choose one from the two fillings and spread on the first lasagna sheet, then spread some Bechamel sauce, some mozzarella and a handful of Parmigiano.
 
5. Lasagna sheet again, the second type of filling, mozzarella and Parmigiano.
6. Continue with the layers alternating the fillings. You need to make about 5-6 layers. 

7. Add more Parmigiano on top of lasagna.

 8. Cook in the preheated oven at 200C for 25-30 minutes. At the end the top should be nicely golden. You may try a tiny corner of the upper layer to see if it's ready. You may also try it with a knife, making a tiny cut somewhere in the centre of lasagna.

Wait for about 10 minutes before serving as a just-ready lasagna burns.... 

Buon Appetito!!!