great northern beans with collard greens, pasta and bacon

I decided to try another recipe from How To Cook Everything - White Beans with Cabbage, Pasta and Ham. This book features a whole lot free-form recipes compared to how we usually cook from Everyday Food. After I get home from a long day at work I sometimes just like to cook according to a recipe because it's simple and I'm not quite up for too much of a challenge. But Mark Bittman's recipes give you options and switch-ups that really work. Mind you, this recipe in particular was a little scary because all the ingredients together sounded like it could potentially be a horror. But you never know till you try, right? I also felt like there wasn't any loss in trying this out because it was basically a fridge/pantry clean-out. Plus, we are now finding ourselves attempting to make more bean recipes because Owen's so crazy about them. 

Bittman’s suggestion for a take using collards was to pair it with flageolet beans. I can’t say I’ve ever seen those kickn' around the grocery store, so I opted to use the rest of an open bag of Great Northern Beans. Along with the beans we used, leftover collard greens, left over bacon, an open box of broth and open bag of pasta to make Great Northern Beans with Collard Greens, Pasta and Bacon.

After tasting this dinner all I could think is this is a simple cassoulet in pasta form. Similar ingredients as a cassoulet, but with the addition of thyme was a great flavour boost. Beans and pasta are a little heavy, but on a cold day this is a very comforting dinner.  This really is surprisingly delicious and when you make a dinner without any expectations and are pleasantly surprised it's always nice.