Northern bean/fagioli and pasta

This dish can be just fagioli or complemented with pasta or rice (I like to use Arborio rice or small pasta such as shell pasta)
Now Grandma or your mom or your sister in Italy may say: this is not the way we do it in Italy. But than even an Italian cook from Bari may not agree on the same recipe with an Italian cook from Milano. This is my recipe and if you do not like it or turns out not to be tasty, well see if Google has something better and Buon appetito.
Learn to cook without spoons or measuring cups once you become good at it. Every stove cooks differently. I do not soak beans overnight nor I use a slow cooker, I use a large pan because beans will grow in size.
Ingredients: (place all ingredients in a large tall pan, cook for about 4 hours at medium to low heat with the lid on)
- 3 cups Northern beans (wash beans before cooking them)
- 14 cups of water (start with 10 cups of water and add as needed making sure that you have plenty of juice when cooking is completed)
- olive oil (1 to 2 spoons)and salt as needed for taste. You can add these two ingredients at the beginning after water is boiling
- 1 to 2 cloves of garlic (whole not chopped) - you can remove at the end of cooking or if you are like me I can eat whole cooked garlic anytime, it's healthy
- 4 to 5 bay leaves
- a little baking soda
- 1 stem of celery cut in half
- a dozen cherry tomatoes cut in half
Pasta or rice should be cooked separately. You can eat the beans alone or mixed with pasta or rice.
If you eat the beans alone you can squeeze a little juice from a lemon
and a teaspoon of olive oil.
If you eat the brand with pasta or rice, you may want to add 1 teaspoon of olive oil and if you like s little fresh grounded pepper.
No criticism here. Americans have a tendency to put cheese or Parmesan cheese on everything. In Italy it is considered a sin. You will loose the true flavor of this dish if you add cheese. Forget the cheese.