Tuscan Pasta and Beans

If you have time to cook pasta, you have time for this meat free meal. Of course, adding chicken to it would be great too but not necessary as this is a pretty complete meal in itself.

Ingredients:

500g pasta
2 tbsps olive oil
2 tbsps butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1 can romano beans, drained and rinsed (or kidney, navy)
1  1/2 cups chopped kale
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
2 heaping tbsps nutritional yeast (optional)
3 tbsps chopped fresh parsley

Well here's a neat little trick I learned. When you have a bunch of cherry tomatoes (or grapes) to cut in half lay them between 2 plastic lids, hold the top one firmly and slice through with a sharp knife. Cuts the  slicing time in half! See what I did there ; )

Get the pasta cooking then heat olive oil and butter on low in a large frying pan. Add garlic, sauté 1 minute, then add the kale and tomatoes. Continue until the tomatoes begin to release their juices, 3-4 minutes.

Stir in the beans, salt and pepper, half the cheese and nutritional yeast if you are using it.

Toss the cooked pasta into the bean mixture and serve with the remaining parmesan and fresh parsley. Or you could just toss all the parmesan into the mix. I think next time I make this I'll add some sun dried tomatoes as well!

Serves 4-6

Adapted from robinglancenutrition.com