Pasta with Spinach, Beans & Bacon

Here's a pasta that full of stuff that's good for you, leafy greens & beans, plus has tasty, salty bacon pieces.

Other than cooking the beans this is a super fast dinner. You could used canned beans but then you wouldn't have the flavorful cooking water to add to the pasta. I recently got a small crock pot at Target for $7 & it's the perfect size for cooking beans. I let them soak for about an hour or so then set the crock pot to low & let the beans cook for about 4 hours. I had perfectly cooked beans with no fuss. My bean were so creamy they added an almost sauce-like texture to the finished dish.

Pasta with Spinach, Beans & Bacon
(adapted from Heirloom Beans)

4 oz tube pasta
2 slices good bacon, cut into large pieces
1 t olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
4 c spinach (I would just use a whole bunch), if the leaves are large tear them a little
1/2 c dry white beans (we used Yellow Eye beans but any white bean will do), cooked, reserve 1/3 c of the cooking liquid
1/4 t red pepper flakes
2 T toasted bread crumbs
2 T great Parmesan
salt

Cook the pasta according to the directions. Drain when al dente.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until crispy. Remove from pan & drain on a paper towel.

Add olive oil to the pan & heat. Add the garlic & cook for about a minute. Pour in a little of the reserved bean liquid & stir scraping any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Put the spinach in the pan & cook until just wilting. Add the beans, bacon & pasta & mix together. Stir in the remaining bean water. Add the red pepper flakes, bread crumbs & Parmesan. Season with salt.

Serves 2

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski