Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Pasta and Bean Casserole (single serving)

 
Yay for single servings!
Yay for cheesey pasta dishes!
Yay for delicious food!
I am so happy that I can make these tasty, homemade pasta dishes in under 40 minutes and they make just enough for me.
Of course, you can double or triple the recipe if you like but I developed it as a single serving.
According to Fitday: 500 calories, 13.7 fat, 68 carbs, and 25.5 protein.
Yes, it is a little high...BUT... this will fill you up and you will not have to add anything to your meal. Plus, as pasta dishes go, it is full of healthy, good stuff like beans, cheese, and vegetables!
 
 
Pasta and Bean Casserole (single servings)
 
Ingredients
1/2 cup mini shells pasta (uncooked)
1 tsp olive oil
1 Tbsp onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup spinach, chopped
1/2 cup white kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 Tbsp tomato sauce
1 round Canadian bacon, cooked, diced
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded, divided
1 tsp dried parsley
 
Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray a 2 cup, oven safe casserole dish with cooking spray.
In a medium saucepan, cook pasta in water according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
In the same saucepan, heat olive oil. Add onion, garlic, and spinach. Cook and stir until vegetables are soft. Stir in beans, tomato sauce, and Canadian bacon.
Remove from heat and stir in pasta. Stir in 3 Tbsp of the Parmesan cheese.
Spread evenly in prepared casserole dish. Top with remaining 1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese and parsley.
 
 
Bake at 350 for 15 - 20 minutes, until heated through and cheese is melted. Serve hot.
 
 
It was too hot to eat out of the casserole dish so I used my new bowl. Cute, right?
 
This makes a lot. It is a single serving but, if you made a salad to go along side, you could easily stretch this into 2 servings.
The nutritional values were figured using the recipe as written above. You could easily add more cheese, more tomato sauce, more veggies, etc.. but that would change the nutritional values.
I happen to like my pasta on the not-so-spicy side but feel free to add your favorite spices or hot sauce to fancy it up.
I didn't have any tomato sauce at home so I used my Magic Bullet and pureed a quarter of a tomato with a clove of garlic and a pinch of Italian spice blend and it worked just as well!
Meals for one don't have to be boring.
 
Be sure to stop by Carole's Chatter for more great links!

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting a recipe for one! Most recipes are not even for two, and many of us are single.

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  2. I was wondering if you could do print-friendly versions of your recipes so that anyone can make a copy of the recipe for themselves without having to write out the whole recipe?

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    Replies
    1. We are working on getting a print friendly version on our blog - unfortunately right now it's not offered to us in the format we are using. Some tips you can try -- You can copy and paste into a blank Word document (that way you can delete or make changes and only print what you want) OR you can highlight the recipe then right click and print the selected area. Hope that helps!

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