Cassoulet with White Beans, Sausage & Turkey 1

Cassoulet with White Beans, Sausage & Turkey

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I don’t know how I managed to make it through 20-some years of life without trying cassoulet, but I have a feeling I’ll eat enough this fall and winter to make up for it. I made the one pictured here about two weeks ago, and I’ve been dying to have it again ever since. I actually have another one in the oven as I write this post.

Don’t let the fancy French name scare you off. When it comes down to it, cassoulet is nothing more than a white bean and tomato stew. A fragrant sauce flavored with fresh herbs cooks quickly on the stove before being mixed with the rest of the ingredients and baking in the oven. It’s pure stick-to-your-ribs comfort food full of rich and delicious flavors typical of the French countryside.

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This dish takes a little longer to make than most of my recipes, requiring about 20 minutes of active time and an hour or so in the oven, but with a little planning it can definitely be made on a weeknight. Go ahead and make a big batch — it tastes even better the next day.

Traditional cassoulet uses duck or goose confit, but since that can be difficult to find (not to mention expensive!) I’ve taken the liberty of using turkey instead. I like the flavor that using some poultry gives the cassoulet, but you can leave it out and use only sausage just as easily.

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Cooking Basics: Browned Chicken Stock

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As the weather continues to cool down I find myself wanting soup more and more often. I think soup is just about as close as you can get to the perfect meal: warm, comforting, balanced and great for wither lunch or dinner (and in some cultures even for breakfast!). I usually make my soup with boxed stock, but nothing beats homemade soup made with homemade stock. This browned chicken stock is a great base for almost any soup – it’s richer than regular chicken stock, but the chicken flavor isn’t so overpowering that you can’t use it in a vegetable based soup too. I most recently used it in my Pho Ba, and it was wonderful. If you have a few hours one afternoon to let the ingredients simmer, you can easily make enough of this delicious stock to last you through a few pots of soup. Just divide it into smaller containers and freeze it – since you can cook it right from froze, you’ll be able to make a great homemade soup whenever you want. [….]

Daring Cooks: Quick and Easy Chicken Pho (Pho Ba)

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The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. I’ll be honest here – I wasn’t particularly excited about this challenge. I’ve made pho before, and I love it, but I didn’t want to do a second post on it. Plus, the main recipe presented to us was for chicken pho, and I don’t usually care for chicken soups. So I dragged my feet on completing this challenge and didn’t make it until last night. I’m glad I did though, because it was really good, and really EASY. Crazy easy. 90% of the ingredients are things that I generally have on hand (and the other 10% could be omitted or swapped) so this is a great recipe to keep in the back of your mind for when dinner hasn’t been planned. And the best part is that it makes very few dishes, so cleanup is a breeze![….]