Marie Wallace's Pasta and Beans

from the Dark Shadows Celebrity Cookbook

Marie Wallace, who loves to cook (and who now as an artist takes marvelous pictures) contributed a number of recipes to the Dark Shadows Celebrity Cookbook, all of which are practical, appetizing, healthy, and interesting.  This one is well worth trying.  Marie suggests boiling rotelle or fusilli pasta and combining them with a can of Progresso lentil soup, to which you have already aded a good amount of chopped and sauteed garlic, parsley, and basil.  I found this very appealing, but made my own lentil soup -- my favorite recipe from Jane Brody's Good Food Book which is easy to make and has plenty of aromatic vegetables in it already.  There's nothing wrong with using Progresso soup either, so it's up to you.  The real value of the recipe is in the addition of the slightly chewy pasta which goes well with the creamy lentils and flavorful vegetables making a kind of a variation on pasta e fagioli.  It makes sense, when you think about it, that Marie would have come up with a handy yet delicious recipe like this since it was probably made frequently in Collinsport by none other than Megan Todd.  Megan worked full time running that charming little antique store, not to mention having a temperamental husband and a Leviathan child in the apartment upstairs.  With all that, who would have time to cook elaborate meals?  Perhaps this is what Phillip was referring to when he asked her if they were having spaghetti again that night.