Test 3 NOTE - Pasta e fagioli (Spaghetti with Bean Sauce)

1- Sometimes, failures are awesome. I had a cup of cooked Hidatsa Shield Figure Beans and tried making the Pottage recipe, which requires uncooked beans; I also didn't have any oregano, dry or fresh, on hand, so I substituted with marjoram. It turned out really wet, so I boiled it down, which created a really delicious sauce, which I serve over pasta! Awesome!
2 - A lovely, simple, understated comfort food.
3 - Again used the Hidatsa, but doubled the amount, and changed the instructions a bit to mix the pasta directly into the sauce before serving. I will graduate it to Test 3 even though I've made these changes, and if next time it ends up being as delicious, I will publish it, otherwise I will hold it back.
4 - NOTE : I've slightly altered the recipe, looking up Italian recipes for pasta and beans - there I found that the beans are run through the blender! How exciting! I will try this in my next attempt at this recipe.

5 - Sep 18 2021 - After a few years since last I made this, I made it again and it continues to be very good. I did try to grind the beans, using a food processor for a rough chop. Ben thought it was good like that, but I don't know if, for me, it was that the beans weren't quite cooked (I used purchased Mexican red beans) and were a bit grainy, or if it was the bean skins. Next time I will blender the beans into a fine slurry to see how that goes. No alterations for proportions or anything of the sort.

6 - Jul 17 2022 - This doesn't get made often because dry beans and fresh tomato season don't really go together. But I did make it, and it was good, and I learned some more about it. First, this time around it was obvious that, if I'm mixing the noodles with the sauce, 8oz is definitely too little in terms of dry pasta proportions. I am changing it to 1lb of pasta. Secondly, I made it with pinto beans that started to go soft, and didn't remove the tomato skins. I did a quick pulse in the blender to combine the two, and I feel that the texture is not right, and the skins of both the beans and the tomato are the problem. Next time it may be to liquify in the blender, or it may be to pass the sauce through a sieve, or maybe even both. It could also be that there are two recipes in this - one for firm beans in hot stewed tomato sauce over pasta, the other a creamy bean sauce that happens to have tomato in it.

2 cups cooked white beans (if possible, cooked with bay and thyme in the water)
2 Tbsps olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp marjoram, dry
Salt, to taste
1/2  tsp pepper
3 large tomatoes, skinned (to skin, cut an X on the bottom and simmer in water for 1 minute)
2 cups chicken broth
1 tsp fruit vinegar (either, red wine, white wine, plum, apple cider, etc)
Parmesan
1lb pasta

1. Soak the dry beans overnight and then boil in fresh water with a bay leaf and a sprig of thyme until perfectly done (slightly underdone beans will create a mealy texture in the final sauce.)
2. Brown the garlic in the oil; remove the pan from your heat source.
3. Add marjoram and bay leaf and beans, stir in for about a minute more just to allow the flavours to mingle. Remove the bay leaf, season with salt and pepper. 
4. Run this mixture through a blender until smooth, adding a flavorful liquid such as the bean cooking water or broth from step 2 if it gets too thick. (You may want to run this through a sieve to remove any tough skins that haven't ground down enough.)
5. In a separate pot add the tomatoes and the chicken stock. Bring to a boil to cook the tomatoes. 
6. In yet another pot prepare the noodles in salted water.
7. Reduce to a rapid simmer and cook, uncovered, until the liquid reduces by about a third to a half. Stir occasionally. This should take as long as it takes for the pasta water to come to a boil and cook the noodles.
8. Stir in the ground beans to heat through.
9. Add the fruit vinegar (I use plum).
10. Combine the pasta and the sauce before serving.
11. Top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and fresh ground pepper.