So. On November 1st, we finally got all our things delivered. WE HAVE A FUNCTIONING APARTMENT. We have pans! Knives that can actually cut things! Cupboards in which to place food and other objects!

Here is our first serious cooked dinner in our NEW APARTMENT.

You may notice that this is nearly exactly the same as various other fagiolis I have made, or even the cranberry beans I made a couple weeks ago. To you I say: it is still delicious, and also who cares. Who cares? It was what we wanted to celebrate being in our new apartment where we live. Also, beans and pasta are awesome.

Pasta fagioli with red pepper.

garlic
olive oil
jalapeno/other hot pepper
red pepper
I used a can of white beans but you can use soaked/boiled ones
ditalini/other smallish or tubey pasta
vermouth/wine/cooking alcohol of some type
salt, pepper
fresh parsley

Start some water boiling for the pasta! Put salt and a glob of olive oil in it! Bring it to a boil whilst doing everything else!

Ahem.

Warm some olive oil in a frying pan, then add as much minced smashed garlic as you want. I used something like eight or ten cloves, because I think garlic is awesome and also because we don't have a spice cabinet yet. Garlic!!

Also mince a hot pepper, or as much of it as you can stand, and add it to the garlic and oil. Chop up a red pepper and add it too. Cook everything slowly so it gets soft and caramelized.

Give it about ten minutes before you add your white beans. I had no presoaked/etc beans, due to immediate post-moving status, so I used a drained can of white beans instead. Add your white beans, plus a cup or so of water, and bring the business to a simmer. You can simmer this for as long as the pasta takes to cook. Cook the pasta.

Stir up the bean mix. Keep adding water as needed if your beans get too dry during cooking.

When the pasta has been boiling for at least five minutes, add a splash of any cooking alcohol you want to the bean mix, stir it, and let it cook off. We only had Jameson's, so that's what I used. I know. No one should use Jameson's for cooking, only for sipping. It made some really good fagioli, though. Oh man.

While everything is on the stove, rip as many parsley leaves as you can stand off their stems. Chop them up and have them ready.

When everything is done, drain the pasta and take the beans and etc off the heat. You want the beans to be at least a little liquid, but it'll depend on your preferences. Add a bunch of chopped parsley to your beans and mix them up. I put about 2/3 of mine in to get pureed, then added the rest for garnish.

I like fagioli with pureed beans, so I attack everything with my stick blender. You can do that, or you can roughly mash the beans with the back of a spoon or fork. Then add your drained pasta, salt and pepper, mix it all up, and eat.

Lots of pepper is really good with these. We had ours with spinach salad, i.e. washed, chopped raw spinach with no dressing, eaten from a bowl with our fingers. Oh man, nutrients! We've been living off restaurant food and halfass fake kitchen concoctions! FOOD.