Bean Bolognese

Tonight for dinner I'm making bean bolognese, a recipe I discovered awhile back on EatingWell.com.  I'm going to have to start planning for seven dinners per week since we've pretty much stopped getting takeout altogether and rarely resort to frozen pizzas anymore.  I picked bean bolognese for tonight because we have some leftover slow-cooker pinto beans to use up from a couple nights ago and I have enough of the ingredients to throw it together without making an impromptu trip to the grocery store. 

Ingredients

• 1 14-ounce can pinto beans, kidney beans, some other beans, or a mixture of several kinds, rinsed, divided (I'll be using leftover slow-cooker pinto beans I made a couple nights ago.)
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 1/4 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes (I don't have any of these on hand, so I'm going to throw a 28 oz. can of whole peeled tomatoes in my food processor and then use half of that.)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, divided (I have no fresh parsley, but I don't like raw parsley on pasta anyway, so I'll sprinkle some dried parsley into the sauce instead.)
• 8 ounces whole-wheat fettuccine (I'm substituting whole wheat spaghetti because it's what I have on hand.)
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil. Mash 1/2 cup beans in a small bowl with a fork or potato masher.

2. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, celery and salt; cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and bay leaf; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add wine; increase heat to high and boil until most of the liquid evaporates, 3 to 4 minutes. Add tomatoes and their juices, 2 tablespoons parsley and the mashed beans. Bring to a lively simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 6 minutes. Add the remaining whole beans; cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through, 1 to 2 minutes more.

3. Meanwhile, cook pasta in the boiling water until just tender, about 9 minutes or according to package directions. Drain.

4. Discard the bay leaf and top the pasta with the sauce; sprinkle with Parmesan and the remaining parsley.