Yes, it does need all caps- this is perhaps the most delicious meal I have ever made. It's savory and filling, and warms you from the inside out. The perfect meal for a cold January evening.
My friend Autumn is both a nutritionist and excellent cook. She posted a recipe for cassoulet on her blog and it looked so good I knew I had to try it. If you want really beautiful pictures of the process and the finished cassoulet, then head over to her post. In addition to being a nutritionist, cook, and fabulous friend, she's also a much better photographer than I will ever be!
I modified her recipe only slightly. In accordance to The Rules, I used dried navy beans and fresh plum tomatoes rather than canned. I forgot to soak the beans overnight, so I boiled them for a few minutes while the sausage was cooking. The only wine I had in the house was some very old rose in the fridge (hey- I need to stay up for work every night, so wine is out of the question!). I added a little bit of that but most of my liquid was homemade turkey stock obtained from my mom. Thanks Mom! The beans were still fairly crunchy after over an hour of cooking, so I just kept adding stock as needed and cooking it all on low. I had some really gorgeous rainbow kale from my CSA box that made a lovely addition to the mix. (ETA- turns out this was actually chard, not kale. Still very yummy!) All told, I cooked the cassoulet for about 3 hours.
Mmmmmmm.....
 |
| veggies all chopped and waiting |
 |
| everything in the pot, let the cooking begin |
 |
| the rainbow kale (er..chard)- seriously, isn't it gorgeous?!? |
 |
| time to eat (and eat and eat) |
As you can see from the photos, I don't own a Dutch oven and made the cassoulet in my largest skillet which happens to be nonstick. Due to the nonstick surface there were no lovely little crunchy bits in the pan to deglaze. Bummer. I can't even imagine how amazing this would taste if made in a more traditional vessel.
Small sidebar. Reason #472 why I don't ever want to move: I posted on Facebook asking for advice on which brand of Dutch oven to buy. Within a few minutes, my neighbor was knocking on my door to lend me their rarely used oven! I heart my neighbors.
And in other news, stayed tuned for upcoming posts about something other than food. I used the last of the shampoo this morning.....
No other comment than YUM!
ReplyDeleteLooks wonderful!! I'm beginning to think I should have you start cooking on My Thursdays. Everything you make these days sounds super yummy!!
ReplyDeleteX
Christina
Double yum! I may have to steal this and do a blog post of my own ;)
ReplyDeleteI have an epic love affair with my dutch and french ovens. They are lovely. Enjoy it!
ReplyDeleteSo um Mama, the reason I think you liked that kale so much is that it is actually chard. Chard is delicious!
Interesting. I was sure that the greens were labeled rainbow kale on the box's list but now that I think about it, it wasn't anything like the kale I'd gotten before! (which I did really like- used it in a risotto) Quite possibly I just skimmed the list and saw what I wanted to see. :)
ReplyDeletedo you read homestead revival? she just did a post on homemade deodorant! is it weird that i read it and thought about your shampoo being used up?
ReplyDeleteOh, my. I was convinced I wasn't going to give up my chemical-laden store-bought deoderant but now I'm intrigued... I just can't believe that I wouldn't be a stinky mess within an hour. Might be a fun experiment.
ReplyDeleteAnd shampoo is coming up soon, very soon!