Ungh. That’s my realization, at my doctor’s office last week, that I weigh a good 10 pounds more than I thought I did. And I feel like I gained it all this month, during my self-imposed Cassoulet Season. (Thank god it was freezing here. I think I would’ve thrown up if I’d had to go through this process in July.)

So here’s how I got at least 5 of those pounds.

First, I made some duck confit. I followed Paula Wolfert’s edict of 22g of salt per pound of meat, but either I did my math wrong or that is just really a ton of salt. I didn’t add all that I’d measured, and it still turned out very salty.

I also–get this–confited the whole duck, instead of just the legs. It’s true what they say about the breast meat not getting so fabulous a texture, but hey, it’s all going to the same place anyway–by which I mean, to a pot in a slow oven with some beans and garlic for hours. Who’s gonna know?

Then I made some sausage.

Crazy! you’re saying.

It wasn’t that bad. First of all, it was days after the confit, so I didn’t get kitchen-grease overload. And they were patties. And no meat grinder was involved. I basically used Julia Child as inspiration to just make patties, and was heartened to read Paula Wolfert’s encouraging words re: the use of a food processor. So my little sausage patties didn’t have the fluffiest texture, but they tasted great. Amazing what a slug of brandy will do for some pork, and I subbed pancetta for straight fat, per Wolfert, and added more garlic than either called for.

Then…then I rested for a few days.

Then I soaked some beans. I had a pound of gigantes, the Greek-style giant lima beans, which I was mildly concerned might not “read” as classic cassoulet. Like I fucking know, but I didn’t want to make a batch of this stuff, and then have it be so far off the mark as to be unrecognizable. But small beans are boring. Big beans are awesome!

Unfortunately, I only had a pound. But I had half a pound of great northerns, left over from the first effort. I threw those in a separate pot. This was handy, actually, because I got to try a couple of different approaches to simmering the beans.

Results (no pics, you’ll have to trust me): whole onions are fine, pork skin is good and cloves stuck in the onion are fun to do and help clear out years-old spice inventory, but may or may not make a difference.

For the meat, I did mostly lamb, with a smidge of pork left from the sausage-making. I put this in its own garlic-onion-carrot-tomato-wine-stock stew for about an hour.

Then I layered everything together. The unappealing orange stuff is the lamb stew. Trust me–it tasted good. Oh, I remember why: I put about 1/3 of a pound of pancetta in too.

Oh, I forgot: on the bottom of the pot, I put in the pieces of pork skin, kind of as a buffer. Some recipes tell you to cut the skin into teensy little pieces, but I just knew I didn’t want one of those gelatinous gobs slithering down my throat. I left ’em big so I could taste just to be sure of my prejudices, and then pull it all out easily.

On top, I grated some nutmeg. Who the hell knows if this makes any difference, but it made me feel cook-y. And, as Nicole pointed out last night, it always feels like a small victory when you can put the Microplane away without having sliced up your knuckles.

I poured in a lot of bean stock and let the baby bake a couple of hours. Slid it in the “walk-in”–aka the uninsulated pantry–for the night. Pulled it out two hours before dinner and stuck it in a cold oven set to 300, after adding another cup or so of bean liquid.

About 20 minutes before dinner, I sprinkled on some bread crumbs, mixed with some chopped-up parsley. (The vegetables–I cling to them like a mirage), and then scooped up some of the fat layer to drizzle over them.

They crisped up beautifully at the end:

I was a little nervous digging into it, especially for the texture. The beans had cooked more quickly than I thought they would, and were verging on too soft when I layered them into the pot. I had also been very liberal with the bean stock, to counteract previous efforts, where the beans had just glommed up in a wad. And I wasn’t sure if my little sausage patties would actually hold together.

Aside from the confirmed nastiness of the pork skin, it turned out pretty well. The key thing was the textural variety, I think. Although the beans were a wee bit squishy, they hadn’t gotten totally gummy yet, and the less-than-standard sausage texture was actually a plus–it gave you a little something to properly chew on. And the bread crumbs rocked. I should’ve had a second batch to lay over the bottom half of the batch!

I wish I could say I felt elated at this point, like I’ve reached a major life goal. But I just feel sluggish. I can’t imagine why.

Anyway…want the recipe? This one, at least, you’ll have to buy the cookbook for. Good thing it’s not coming out till October–I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt themselves by cooking this in the summer.