So you know how we eat all kinds of pasta fagioli, so much that I generally don't even bother to write about it, because seriously, how many times can you repeat yourself? Yeah. I made a batch with kale the other day, and we ate it in big bowls, and it was good.

Then the next day we had leftovers. I fried them into pasta cakes.

Don't look like that! It's a well-established fact that frying starchy concoctions into cakes is delicious. We eat potato cakes and rice cakes and risotto cakes when the leftover risotto lasts long enough to get into the frying pan. Why can't we have pasta cakes?

We ate them and they were good.

Pasta cakes

olive oil
leftover fagioli with chunky pasta
anything you want for addenda

Warm a nonstick frying pan to a little about medium. When hot, throw in a little olive oil and tilt to get everything slicked up. Then whack in a few big spoonfuls of leftover fagioli, flattening them slightly with the back of the spoon.

Flip after a few minutes, when the bottom of each cake is golden brown. I had the heat too high at first, so my first batch were more like dark brown. Whatever; it was ok. Cook until the second side is golden brown, flip onto a plate, and eat.

Addenda:
- If you want some parmesan, mix it into the fagioli before frying, or sprinkle some on top of each cake.
- I guess you could also make an actual cheese sauce and pour it over the cakes, but that seems like overkill.
- Mix pieces of roasted red pepper, corn, zucchini, or whatever other vegetable sounds good into the fagioli before you fry it.
- Put chopped parsley or other obvious herbs on top.
- Stack up the cakes with huge slices of grilled eggplant or raw tomato between them. Or pesto. Something.

Instead of doing any of these things, I washed out the pan, stuck the cakes in the oven to keep warm for a few minutes, and made garlic chard.

Garlic chard is easy.

garlic
olive oil
chard
salt

Chop several cloves of garlic in slices while you heat a nonstick pan on medium. Cook the garlic slices in a little oil. The slower you cook them, the more caramelized they'll be; I wanted pretty intact, chewy garlic, so I cooked them on medium.

Separate the chard leaves from the stems and chop each into small pieces. When your garlic is starting to brown, add the stems to the pan with a pinch of salt and cook for a few minutes, letting the juices leach out and keep the garlic from burning. When the stems are just about cooked, add the leaves and stir until wilted.

There you go: garlic chard.