White Beans With Bread Crumbs And Spinach

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

(The night before, I put the frozen spinach in the fridge to thaw.)
Soak and cook the beans in your standard manner, adding a bay leaf to
flavor them as they cook.  This batch took about 1-3/4 hours to get
real tender after a 2-hour soaking following a 2-minute boiling. When
they're done, mostly drain them -- the recipe said to leave them
almost covered with their cooking liquid, which I thought was too  wet.
Your call. I saved the cooking liquid when I drained it so I  could add
some of it back after adding everything else if it seemed  dry, which
indeed it did.  I made the bread crumbs by tearing up two thick slices
of (previously  unsliced) white bread -- next time I will try whole
wheat -- and  whirling them in the Cuisinart.  After a few whirls, I
added in the  cloves of garlic and pulsed them until the bread was in
crumbs. (What  a wonderful aroma from the combined bread and garlic!) I
put the  crumb/garlic mix in a bowl.  I put the spinach in a pan (my
new Circulon wok, I love it!  thanks to  y'all who mentioned it and
inspired me to buy it!!) and heated it up  uncovered for a couple of
minutes -- didn't try to get it "cooked",  just "hot".  I added salt
(about 3/4 tsp), white pepper, oregano and  thyme, mixed it up, then
pureed it in the Cuisinart -- this was the  olive-oil substitution so I
made it as flavorful as possible.  Finally, I added the crumbs and 1/3
cup of the spinach puree to the  beans (in a large bowl), mixed well,
added back some of the reserved  bean-cooking liquid, and tried not to
"taste" too much of it -- it  was really tasty. I refrigerated it
overnight.  Before serving it I warmed it up gently -- you could serve
it cold  but I think warming it brings out more of the flavors.  It was
well  received and I will do it again.  It also looked real nice with
the  white beans and the green spinach.  And since it was (as usual)
the  only fatfree item at the lunch, I was glad there was lots of it!
Date:    Sat, 23 Apr 94 17:27:59 EDT From: muriel kranowski
<DOC@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU>  Converted to MM format by Dale & Gail Shipp,
Columbia Md.  Posted to MM-Recipes Digest V4 #3 by "Rfm"
<Robert-Miles@usa.net> on  Jan 11, 99

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Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 396
Calories From Fat: 12
Total Fat: 1.4g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 195.2mg
Potassium: 2201.6mg
Carbohydrates: 71g
Fiber: 19.3g
Sugar: <1g
Protein: 28.7g