Pasta with Kale, Pinto Beans, and Tomatoes

I spent most of my day off today running around doing errands... getting my son's 18-month-old photos taken, shopping, banking. Then I came home and caught up on some gardening and made a bunch of phone calls. Had the kids with me most of the day, and they were very whiny. By mid-afternoon I had (and still have) a tension headache. So I wasn't much in the mood for a complicated dinner. Thank goodness for one of my standby recipes: pasta with greens, beans, and tomatoes.

I can't recall where I originally got this recipe. I don't even have it written down anywhere and I modify it pretty much every time I make it, depending on the ingredients I have on hand. Tonight it was a pound of whole wheat linguine topped with kale, pinto beans, and tomatoes. Here's how I make the sauce:

Sautee 3-4 cloves of chopped garlic in 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add a big bunch of washed and chopped kale (or other green of your choice). Once the kale is nicely wilted, pour in a can of drained beans. Tonight I had pinto beans, but I usually use cannellini. Stir. Next add a 15-ounce can of chopped tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer until the sauce starts to thicken. Stir the sauce into the drained pasta, cover and let it sit a few minutes so the pasta soaks up the juices. I usually serve it with a side salad.

Blogging is hard!

OK, so my attempt at blogging has been an abysmal failure! With a job and two young kids, it seems impossible to find the time for all the things that need to be done... cooking, dishes, laundry, yard work. There never seems to be any time for the exercise I so desperately need or even a few minutes on the couch resting or reading. Which means there also is seemingly little time for social networking or blogging. And even when there is time, I work on a computer all day, so turning it on at home is not always my first priority.

So, for all these reasons, it turns out that blogging is extremely difficult for me. I have ideas for posts but no time or motivation to actually write them! But I'm going to try again, so look for more to come...