Stewed White Beans with Spinach and Bacon

Every once in awhile, you come across a recipe that is totally worth it's overall "pain in the ass" factor.

Friends:  This is that dish. 

After an ass-kicking three weeks of proposal writing and miscellaneous activity, I spent part of last Friday going through a stack of recipes that I had torn out of magazines (ahem, some of them going back to 2006 ... "Shelley, 'Hoarders' called, they were thinking you'd make a good subject for next season ..."), trying to find them on the Internet and then PDF-ing them to my hard drive.  Because, yes, in my world I apparently need about 150 more recipes to try, in addition to the ones I already have bookmarked from my forays into the Interwebs and have I ever told you that I have 50+ cookbooks that are standing sentry in my kitchen?  You might be able to classify this hobby of mine as an addiction, but ... meh.  I can stop whenever I want, right?  Right?

Well, I figure in a few short months, my life will be altered by the arrival of my mini Mahannah.  Painstakingly dicing baby red potatoes for Rachael Ray's Stewed White Beans with Spinach and Bacon will be a fond memory and I should make hay / obscure recipes while the sun shines.  So friends ... seriously.  Make this dish.  The beans become velvety in the short time it takes to simmer them in chicken stock.  The bacon is crunchy and the wilted spinach makes one feel even virtuous in the light of the bacon fat that the potatoes were browned in.


This one is a definite keeper.