Harissa Spaghetti with Kale & White Beans

I love browsing the recipes on Heidi Swanson's blog, 101 Cookbooks. Her food is all healthy and pretty vegan friendly. I came across her recipe for Harissa Spaghettini and immeadiately got a craving to make something with harissa. Suprisingly I had a hard time finding harissa paste....I have the spice blend at home already but I wanted to use the actual paste. I managed to find some at Sofra on Saturay and was all set Sunday night to make my own version of Swanson's recipe.




Ingredients:
3 medium cloves garlic, peeled and minced
a big pinch of fine grain sea salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons harissa (paste)
8 ounces (1/2 pound) whole wheat spaghetti
1 bag of pre-cut, pre-washed kale
1 can of white beans (garbanzo beans would also be great here!)
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1 tablepsoon of lemon juice

Directions:

Bring a big pot of water to a boil.
In a small bowl whisk together the garlic paste, harissa, and olive oil. Set aside.

Generously salt the boiling water, add the pasta, and cook per package instructions. Just before the pasta is done add the kale to the pasta water for two minutes, drain and set aside.

Heat half of the harissa dressing in the now empty pasta pot. Add the pasta and kale, white beans, pine nuts, and lemon juice. Stir over the heat for a minute or so, then turn everything out onto a platter and drizzle with the remaining harissa olive oil. Serve with a good french bread.