Pasta e fagioli and skillet cornbread

I'm not sure that these technically go together, but I decided to try making skillet cornbread — and I thought they kind of worked since pasta e fagioli is a stew, even though it's a very Italian one.

I got the pasta e fagioli recipe from the Cupcake Project blog. I know, this doesn't make much sense. But trust me, it's good. She took a recipe (which is supposed to be the Olive Garden recipe, though I've never eaten this dish there) and adapted it. I took her version and adapted it further.

Here are the changes I made:

• only 1 lb. ground beef (because I was making a smaller batch and am attempting to cut down on my meat — and increase my vegetables)
• 2 cans diced tomatoes instead of 3
• skipped the kidney beans (I'm not a huge fan of beans that aren't green so I decided to cut down on the beans by using just the great northern can)
• I didn't have Tabasco sauce and didn't feel like buying it, so I threw in some red pepper flakes instead
• I used rotini instead of wagon wheel pasta. Amazingly, the huge pasta section at my store had NO wagon wheel pasta! I probably should have used shells instead, but it didn't occur to me at the time.

It turned out really well. It just barely fit in my biggest pot. (I can't figure out the size of the pot. I'm guessing it's 4 or 6 quarts.) Also, even though I reduced everything even more, I will have TONS of leftovers. I will definitely be freezing some of this.

The skillet cornbread recipe was in the cookbook that I received with my cast iron skillet (a long while back). Based on the ingredients, it wasn't the healthiest option, but I wanted to try it anyway and it turned out really well. Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to eat all of it. (One of those foods I need to make when other people are around to help eat it.)

And I washed it all down with some Cigarzin red zinfandel wine! (I discovered this wine through wine club, and I recommend it.)