Kale and Cannellini Beans with pasta

I have a simple pantry recipe to share today. By that, I mean I threw it together based on what I had in my pantry that would go with Kale. I had three big bunches of kale this week. With one I made kale chips and one will go into a kale and potato soup so I needed to have an easy dish for the other. I have made a kale soup with Cannellini Beans (white kidney beans) so I thought I would try it as a pasta dish. Greens and beans are a great combination!

Have you tried Cannellini beans? They are my favorite! So creamy and pleasant. You could use any hearty green in this recipe but I think  various Kales would be the best by far. Perhaps mustard greens might work well also?

One more note, I made this with turkey kielbasa because my husband had been patient with mostly vegetarian meals for a week. I knew he was craving some meat. However, this would be just as good without any meat so feel free to leave it out!

Anyway, I figured I had better put up an easy, quick recipe to balance the labor intensive eggplant from yesterday J

Kale and Cannellini Beans with pasta

Olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 bunch kale, washed, de-stemmed and cut into bite sized pieces

1 small red or yellow bell pepper

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 package of turkey kielbasa, Optional

½ tsp. each marjoram, thyme, oregano, garlic powder, salt, pepper

¼ tsp. crushed red pepper

1 can fire roasted tomato, diced

1 can cannellini beans, (also called white kidney beans)

About 4-5 servings cooked pasta (spaghetti or ziti or whatever!)

Parmesan cheese for garnish

In a large frying pan, heat olive oil to medium-low. Add onions and let them cook for about 6 minutes. Pasta should be cooking in another big pot of water with salt at this time.

 If you would like this to be a meat dish, you could add the turkey kielbasa or other sausage now and turn up the heat a bit to brown it. Once it is nicely browned, add kale, garlic, peppers and spices. Cook down for 4 minutes. Add tomato and beans. Heat, stirring gently for 3 minutes until kale is softening but not mushy. Mix with hot, cooked pasta.

Serve topped with Parmesan cheese.