Carol’s Flageolet Bean Cassoulet

Day 1: cook 1/2 lb beans in 3 cups Homemade broth* with meaty ham hock and thyme. (Flageolet or Baby Lima)

Remove meat from ham hock and mix back into the beans and broth and store in fridge for up to 1 week. 

Day 2:  Make in Large Dutch Oven

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb bacon, cut up
• 1 Kielbasa, cut into 1/2″ coins
• 1 Large red onion, diced
• 3-4 carrots, coined
• 3-4 stalks celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic mashed
• 2 tbsp Salt
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 can fire roasted tomatoes
• 1/2 lb shredded, smoked duck, chicken, or turkey
• Day 1’s beans, ham and broth

  More broth as needed

Directions: 

-Sauté bacon until crispy, remove, leave grease in pan. (This is not a light meal!  Hahaha)

-In bacon grease: brown Kielbasa pieces, remove.

-Sautee onions, remove 

-Remove remaining bacon grease from pot

-Sauté carrots and celery (add back bacon grease as needed)

-Add garlic and salt, Sauté 2 minutes 

-Deglaze with white wine

-Stir in Tomatoes, reduce 

-Add back bacon, Kielbasa and onions

-Stir in smoked poultry, beans and ham

-Add more broth as needed 

-Bring to a simmer

-Place in oven at 350 for 1 hour. 

Helpful tips: 

Serve warm with toasted buttered Mini Ciabatta

HOMEMADE BROTH

*Home made broth is a key ingredient in this recipe. 

In a large roasting pan, place chicken bones and skin, beef bones, pork bones, ham bones, celery and carrot tops and bases, onion ends and skins, mushroom stems. (I save and freeze everything every day when I’m cooking, then make broth when my freezer gets full)

Roast for 90 minutes at 350, stirring once after about an hour with top off

Move pan to stove top, and add as much water as your pan will safely hold. 

Put the top on the pan and simmer for 2-3 hours. Let it cool down for a while, then remove the bones, and squeeze liquid from the veggies. Strain broth into a large metal pot. Allow to cool a bit more, and remove fat floating on the top. 

I like to store in 3 cup containers in the freezer. Always available for soup, stew, or cooking rice.