Recreating French White Bean Cassoulet at Home

{originally published in 2013 and updated in 2025}

We were in Paris in 2013 and this is the epitome of comfort food. Here’s what we had in Paris – white beans, duck, pork and a delicious broth:

The Three Bite Rule - Paris Dinner Like a Local

Sometimes the best tasting dishes are not the most photogenic, but comfort comes to this dish from sauce with white beans, pork, and chicken thighs. Baguette would be good but the kiddos like to “make” (and eat) crescents so here we are.

Cassoulet at Home
Ingredients: (for 4 servings)

3-4 chicken thighs
2 sausages
2, 8 oz cans white beans
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup white wine
1 tsp thyme
1 tablespoon tomato paste

Directions:
Heat a large heavy pan to medium heat. Season the thighs with salt, pepper, and thyme. Sear them until golden and mostly cooked (about 4 minutes each side – they’ll finish in the oven). Remove from the heat. Slice the sausages.

In the same pan, deglaze with the wine and bring to a boil for about 2 minutes scraping the bottom bits off. Add in the tomato paste cooking for a few minutes. Next, pour in the broth bringing to a boil.

Pour off the excess liquid for the beans. Pour them in and add the chicken and sausage back in.
Preheat the oven to 350-degrees.

Bake for 20 minutes checking that the chicken is cooked through. My sausages were fully cooked so they were warming in the sauce.
Serve with bread to dip. Enjoy!

I loved this! There’s so much more flavor than the 40-minute(ish) cooktime.

Teriyaki Mushroom Rice Bowls

I love rice bowls for customization though, as the only mushroom fan in the house, this one was purely for me. Roasted broccoli, sweet potatoes, and mushrooms top rice and get a sesame peanut drizzle. Swap the broccoli for edamame or cucumbers or greens!

Teriyaki Mushroom Rice Bowls
Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice
1/2 sweet potato
1 cup broccoli
1 cup mushrooms
1 – 2 teaspoons teriyaki
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
chili crisp

Directions:
Prepare the rice, the potato, and the broccoli.
Pan fry the mushrooms and add a splash of teriyaki at the end.
Spread the rice into the bottom of the bowl and add the broccoli, the potato, and mushrooms.

Stir together the peanut butter, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. Add chili oil if desired.
Drizzle sauce over the top.
Enjoy!

This has sweet from the potatoes with salty from the teriyaki and crunch from the broccoli and the perfect nutty sauce.

Very Veggie Sandwich

This veggie sandwich is absolutely bursting with flavor.

The carrots, zucchini, and tomato are for nutrition. The pesto, the balsamic reduction, and the cheese are the flavor.

Very Veggie Sandwich
Ingredients: (serves 2)

1 zucchini
4 slices of bread or 2 rolls
1 carrot
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1 tomato
1 tablespoon pesto
1/4 cup cottage cheese, blended
2 teaspoons balsamic glaze


Directions:
Slice the zucchini into strips, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkled with salt and pepper, then roast or grill.
Peel the carrot into ribbons and toss with red wine vinegar and a sprinkle of oregano.
Toast the bread.
Spread pesto on one side and cheese spread onto the other.
Slice the tomato and the zucchini.


Pile on the tomato, zucchini, and carrot ribbons. Drizzle balsamic glaze and assemble the two halves together.


Enjoy!

Cottage cheese is not my vibe BUT, blended it is fine. Swap it for ricotta or hummus or avocado! The carrot ribbons with vinegar is the punch this needs. It is drippy and requires 2 napkins. There’s texture and tons of flavor. I loved that this one has red, orange, and green.

You thought I was going to add arugula, am I right? Go for it, I would next time.

March 2025 Recap

March is the best – my birthday, a rollercoaster of winter weather wrapping up with teases of spring. We’ve been reading a lot and have had so many visits from Toast, the neighborhood cat who loves us.

I started March with a girl scout cookie coffee

We had Chicken Parm Dip which was enough to be a meal on it’s own.

Baked Biscuits & Gravy was fun to shake up bfast for dinner.

Biscuits & Gravy Casserole - Baked

April (and spring) is the time for quick dinners so I hope to get a little creative – and school vacation should be fun.

The Big Kid:
He wrapped up basketball with a successful playoffs and just a short break before lacrosse started. We cannot get over how far he came ice skating this season. We were at the rink, the second rink was open, they could have sticks, and then an impromptu game came together which is his dream. Winter has been fun though he cannot wait for shorts season.

The Littler One:
She had her last gymnastics class and we loved seeing her tricks. Soccer starts soon and she’s ready. Some friends from her class go ice skating and it is fun to see her join them.

Goals for this upcoming year:
Year of replacements/upgrades! I got some new baking pans for my birthday
Restaurant Recreations – ehh
Special ingredient focus – nope, didn’t get to this one either.
More fish – I treated myself to chower and clam fritters at Track 15 in Providence.
What I’m reading – I read None of This is True for bookclub and flew through it. Next up was A Bit Much which breaths life into modern poetry, and Let Us Descend was tough but so well done.

1 Pan Biscuits & Gravy

This is so good – and agreeably not the most beautiful. It is comforting and comes together so quickly for some egg, puffy biscuits, sausage, and brown butter gravy. It would be cuter in small ramekins or muffin cups.

Biscuits & Gravy Casserole - Baked

1 Pan Biscuits & Gravy
Ingredients (serves 4-6):

~8 sausage links
1 tube biscuits
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
1 cup milk
2/3 cup shredded cheese

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350-degrees.
Cook the sausage until cooked through.
Remove sausage from the pan and add in the butter cooking over medium heat until the butter begins to brown and smell nutty. Add in the flour and cook for a minute. Reduce heat to low and whisk in the milk. Chop the sausage and add it into the gravy. Cook for about 3 minutes.

Chop the biscuits into 4-6 pieces and drop into a greased 9×9 baking dish.
Whisk the eggs and pour over the biscuit pieces.

Spoon the gravy on top.

Cover and bake for 20 minutes. It will puff and bubble up.
Uncover, top with cheese, and bake for another 10 minutes.

Biscuits & Gravy Casserole - Baked

Serve and enjoy! It’s cheesy, saucy, and very savory.

Our little eaters wouldn’t pick for everything to be together so they tried it and there were some leftover sausages and some separate biscuits.

It stored well and was good leftover too!