Homemade Cooking: Pasta with Beans and Greens

I’d like to share a recipe I tried out a couple of days ago. I came up with it mostly based on a few veggies that begged me to buy them at the Trader Joe’s. And I love pasta, so of course I had to include some! It’s simple but tasty, and would be really easy to modify further to fit your tastes. The veggies, whole wheat instead of regular pasta, and some beans for protein sound like a fairly balanced and healthy combo to me! As usual I forgot to take pictures before we’d eaten it all.

Ingredients:

1 bag whole wheat egg noodles

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic (minced)

½ of a red onion (diced)

1 bunch kale

1 bunch chard

1 can of white beans (drained and rinsed-I used great northern)

Red pepper flakes (to taste)

Salt (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

Grated fresh parmesan cheese (to taste)

Directions:

Cook pasta (I suggest undercooking them by about a minute as they will cook more when combined with the other ingredients) while you prepare the rest of the meal. Put olive oil in a cast iron pot/dutch oven-just enough to coat the bottom of the pot.  Add garlic and red onion. Slice kale (without stems) and chard into pieces and add to pot. Cook until tender.  Add beans, pasta, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to pot. Toss together and cook until heated through (5-10 minutes).  Add grated parmesan cheese to each person’s when serving, stir and eat! Yum!

This was a really quick and easy recipe to make. You could probably use any kind of greens (spinach would probably be tasty!)  You could omit the red pepper flakes if you don’t like spice. It would probably also be tasty with zucchini, bell peppers, or just about any other veggies that are good cooked.  You could probably also omit the olive oil, although I think it makes the spices and garlic/onion flavor stick to the pasta and veggies. Even though it’s a fairly healthy oil it should be used sparingly, of course, as a little bit of oil adds a lot of calories. Enjoy!

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