Veggie Recipe!

I found a new vegetarian recipe- hooray! Our "Meatless Monday" project is coming along nicely, I must say. Today we had our beloved Black Bean Patties with rice, applesauce, and carrot salad for lunch and the new recipe, Pasta with Beans and Greens from Southern Living Busy Moms Weeknight Favorites cook book for dinner. Nom nom nom.

I followed the recipe pretty closely except I subbed veggie broth for the chicken broth, and there are slight variations from the cook book version to the on-line version. The cook book called for a package of pre-sliced mushrooms; I used 3 large portobello caps instead, which is the same as the on-line recipe. (Which I didn't look at until after I tried the cook book recipe, so what a coincidence! I figured sliced mushrooms go bad quickly and the baby 'bellas that aren't sliced, with probably more than 10 per package, take more time to wash and slice than chopping up 3 large ones.) The cook book also called for minced garlic out of a jar, which is what I used. The recipe also calls for either spinach or kale; I used the kale but we found it too tough, and now I have all this kale leftover since the bag had way more than I needed for the recipe. We'll use spinach next time and if there is any leftover we can use it for salad. I forgot to add the Parmesan cheese at the end; it probably would have been good but we didn't miss it. For portion control purposes, I didn't mix the pasta and bean mixture at the end, either. I dished my half cup of pasta into my bowl then scooped the mixture on top of that. This is a really low cal dish, too, so I feel all healthy and veggie-virtuous now. :)