Presto! A little chickpea magic
You know all those times I've written that a smart way to plan for a busy week is to make big pots of things like beans on the weekends, refrigerate or freeze them, and then use them during the week?
Well, here's an excellent example of how efficiently your cooking can go when you've followed that advice.
Chickpeas, my favorite bean of all, are the key. Just about any vegetable can be turned into a pasta sauce, and even though we don't typically think of combining beans and pasta (except, of course, in that great Italian soup pasta e fagioli), this is a pairing that can work particularly well.
Once you cook the beans (or thaw them from frozen - or, okay, drain them from a can), you puree half with a little olive oil and leave the other half whole. Combined with garlic-infused oil and rosemary, they turn into an amazingly deep-flavored, quick-cooking sauce.
The pasta of choice? Rigatoni, naturally: It's just big enough for that sauce - plus some whole chickpeas - to slip inside, ensuring a taste of pasta and beans in every bite. A satisfying dinner just came together, seemingly out of nowhere.
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