Instructions: (The night before, I put the frozen spinach in the fridge to thaw.)

Soak and cook the beans in your standard manner, adding a bay leaf to flavor them as they cook. This batch took about 1-3/4 hours to get real tender after a 2-hour soaking following a 2-minute boiling. When theyre done, mostly drain them - the recipe said to leave them almost covered with their cooking liquid, which I thought was too wet. Your call. I saved the cooking liquid when I drained it so I could add some of it back after adding everything else if it seemed dry, which indeed it did.

I made the bread crumbs by tearing up two thick slices of (previously unsliced) white bread - next time I will try whole wheat - and whirling them in the Cuisinart. After a few whirls, I added in the cloves of garlic and pulsed them until the bread was in crumbs. (What a wonderful aroma from the combined bread and garlic!) I put the crumb/garlic mix in a bowl.

I put the spinach in a pan (my new Circulon wok, I love it! thanks to yall who mentioned it and inspired me to buy it!!) and heated it up uncovered for a couple of minutes - didnt try to get it "cooked", just

"hot". I added salt (about 3/4 tsp), white pepper, oregano and thyme, mixed it up, then pureed it in the Cuisinart - this was the olive-oil substitution so I made it as flavorful as possible.

Finally, I added the crumbs and 1/3 cup of the spinach puree to the beans

(in a large bowl), mixed well, added back some of the reserved bean-cooking liquid, and tried not to "taste" too much of it - it was really tasty. I refrigerated it overnight.

Before serving it I warmed it up gently - you could serve it cold but I think warming it brings out more of the flavors. It was well received and I will do it again. It also looked real nice with the white beans and the green spinach. And since it was (as usual) the only fatfree item at the lunch, I was glad there was lots of it!

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