Kale Rigatoni Bake

I saw this recipe on foodgawker from a stack of dishes. It was originally a coral rigatoni, each rigatoni was stuffed with cheese and kale and stood up in the pan. I thought we would be ambitious and try this, but it didn't quite work out, so we adapted it to just be a rigatoni bake and it still turned out just fine.

This makes about 4-5 servings.

Ingredients:

-1/2 pound rigatoni

-8 oz fat free ricotta

-8 oz part skim ricotta

-1 Tbsp olive oil

-garlic clove

-1/2 onion

-1/2 pound kale

-1 egg

-1 cup grated asiago

-salt 

-pepper

-about 2 cups bechemel sauce (Check out this post to see how to make bechemel).

Heat olive oil in pan, saute garlic and onions until softened.
Chop the kale into small pieces and add to the pan, cook for a few minutes.

Mix the kale with the egg and ricotta.

Meanwhile, start boiling the rigatoni, cook it half way.
Make the bechemel sauce as well.

Spread the bechemel sauce on the bottom of an 8x8 pan.

We tried standing the rigatoni up, but they are tough to fill,
but just be sure to add them all to the pan and spread the
cheese and kale mixture between the noodles.

Top with grated asiago cheese.

Bake at 375 until the top is golden.

Top with red pepper if desired. 

Even though this didn't turn out quite how we expected, it was still really good. The ricotta and kale went together well. A little red pepper on top gave this a little something extra, and gave it a nice color. If you're looking to make an effective kale coral rigatoni, I would suggest pureeing the kale in the blender before mixing it with the ricotta, of course hindsight is 20/20. This recipe is delicious nevertheless, but the coral rigatoni presentation would look beautiful.