Rigatoni with Bacon, Beans and Veggies

I posted the above on Instagram and Twitter on Monday and received a handful of requests for the recipe. The thing is...there wasn't a written recipe! So I interviewed J and asked him how he made it.

Rigatoni with Bacon, Beans and Veggies

4 servings (2 for dinner/2 for lunch the next day)

Ingredients

1 box of rigatoni

6 strips of bacon

1 tsp olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

1 celery stalk, diced

2 portabella mushroom caps, diced

1 tsp tomato paste

1 tsp anchovy pasts (optional)

3 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups greens (spinach or broccoli rabe- used a mix of both)

½ cup of water

1 can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed

grated parmesan cheese to taste

chopped Italian parsley (optional)

salt and pepper

    

1. Start boiling water for pasta
2. In a large saucepan (J used a 3 qt but could have used a little more room), fry bacon in the olive oil over medium low heat till fat is rendered and bacon starts to crisp. Reserve 2 tbsp of bacon drippings and toss the rest.
3. Using the reserved bacon dripping, sauté the onion, carrot and celery till softened. Add a pinch of salt.
4. Add the portabella mushrooms and another pinch of salt. Saute till softened.
5. Add tomato paste, anchovy paste and garlic. Stir to combine.
6. Add the greens and water plus a pinch of salt. Cover.
7. Start cooking the pasta.
8. After 5 minutes, remove the lid and add the cannelini beans. Add salt and pepper to taste.
9. Once the pasta is cooked per box instructions, add to the pan plus 1 ladle of the pasta water.
10. Liberally add parmesan cheese and parsley

Recipe Notes

• There isn't a true sauce for this pasta. The pasta water plus the water from the green combined with the cheese will coat the pasta.
• You can substitute button mushrooms (or any type of mushrooms) for the portabella.
• You can substitute chicken sausage (taken out of the casings) for the bacon.
• You'll notice J salts at each layer he adds to the dish. This is to help bring out the natural flavors of the ingredients. It was a tip we learned from all those cooking shows we watched when we still had cable!

Hope you enjoy this weeknight meal!