Rachael Ray really confuses me, you guys. She confuses me in the way that the epidemic of people who don’t know the difference between you’re and your confuses me, and how Donald Trump’s popularity in the Republican nomination race confuses me. Truly. Madly. Deeply.
Clearly, I’ve made many of her recipes before (check out the list at the bottom). One of her cookbooks is special to me because my aunt bought it for me the Christmas she died, but for whatever reason, I keep racking up these books. I don’t pretend to understand it. Please forgive me.
This particular recipe confuses me even though I’m obviously the person who picked it. At the time I picked it, I thought, “Beans in pasta! How strange! How interesting!” So I bought all the ingredients for it without reading through the recipe, and when I started to make it, I realized it wasn’t beans in pasta, but truly beans with pasta.
Is it just me? Is that super weird?
I made it anyway (since, truth be told, I was halfway through making it before I actually realized that the spinach/beans weren’t mixed into the pasta. Read your recipes, kids!), and it’s weirdly good. The flavors work, even though pasta with a side of beans is weird, y’all.
I did end up mixing it all together on my plate, and it was odd, but tasty. Do whatever you like, but know before you start that the beans and the pasta are two separate, unrelated entities. They’re like you and that random hippie chick from SoCal that you found yourself rooming with freshman year. Strange, but it unexpectedly works.
So what do you guys think? Pasta with a side of beans: weird or nah?
Cacio e Pepe (Cheese and Pepper Pasta) and Spinach with White Beans
Serves 4
From Rachael Ray Express Lane Meals: a 30-Minute Cookbook
