The day I fell in Love with a Cassoulet

Sometimes I don't know how a recipe will turn out until I try it. I am not an expert in French cuisine and I've never had a Cassoulet before. Wiki told me it's cooked in earthenware and it's a rich, slow-cooked casserole. This Cassoulet was, in a sense, a fraud, but a delicious fraud nonetheless :)

I adapted the following Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet from epicurious.

Ingredients:

• 3 Sweet Italian Sausage Links
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, halved and sliced lenghtwise
• 1 1/2 cups of sliced buttom mushrooms
• 1 green pepper sliced lengthwise
• 2 garlic cloves chopped fine
• a handfull of dried oregano, basil, and rosemary crushed and sprinkled
• handful of chopped curled parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups cannellini beans
• 20 oz whole peeled tomatoes

Cook the sausage links for about 8 minutes and then set aside on a towel lined plate. In the same skillet, cook oil, onions, peppers, and mushrooms. Add dried herbs, parsley, bay leaves, and white beans. Slice sausage into 1/4 inch slices and add to skillet. Pour tomatoes and, using spatula, cut up tomato. Mix all together and cover on medium heat.

While that is cooking, chop one garlic clove and a hadful of parsley. Then cut up 5 slices of challah bread and toast bread, parsley, and galic in a tsp of olive oil in a separate pan. Pour sausage and bean mix into cassrole dish and top with bread topping. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and pop the cassrole into the oven for 20 minutes.

I would also skip the bread topping and just get some really really good crusty bread and dip in the stew. Sigh, I couldn't stop "taste-testing" the dish.

And now a view from the side :) Look at those layers, that Cassoulet is thick :)