We have about seven weeks left of Autumn before we have to throw our hands up in despair and admit defeat to winter’s clutches. I fully intend on making the most of some of Autumn’s delightful fare while I can!

When you come home and your driveway looks like this, autumnal cooking quickly seems like the best laid plan for an afternoon. And so it was today (alongside making Halloween costumes) that I made a really awesome homemade soup from a stellar book I have called The Big Book of Soups and Stews.

For those wondering, a cassoulet is a slow-cooked bean stew or casserole that originated in the south of France. As with this one, typical ingredients are meat of some kind and white beans.

Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 pound sweet Italian sausage
• 1 pound kielbasa sausage, cut into 3/8 inch slices

• 3 leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary (1/2 tsp dried would work too)
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with juice
• a few dashes tabasco sauce
• 2 cans (or the equivalent dried, soaked and cooked beans as I did) Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 package (10 oz) frozen baby lima beans, rinsed
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a dutch oven over medium heat, warm oil.
3. Add whole Italian sausage and brown for 15 mins, turning occasionally.
4. Add Kielbasa and brown both sausages about 10 mins longer.
5. Transfer to a plate and slice Italian sausage into half inch thick rounds.
6. Add leeks and garlic to same pan and saute til soft, about 5 mins.
7. Add apple, rosemary, sage, and bay leaf.
8. Stir in tomatoes, Tabasco sauce, beans, stock, and tomato paste. Season with pepper.
9. Bake, covered, about 1 hour. Remove lid and stir in parsley. Bake, uncovered, 15 mins longer. Remove bay leaf and discard.
10. Serve with crusty bread or your preferred kind (I chose wholewheat bread n butter) and if you’re anything like me then a nice glass of red wine to boot.

Now before I say bye, a couple of things. First, thanks so much to all of you for your comments on my leg/running situation. You seriously made me feel ten times better about everything! I’ll update you soon on the dealio with that since I’m sure you’re itching to know.

Second, you people feel strongly about your oatmeal! Thanks for all the awesome comments with your favourite combos – I’ll be debuting a few and posting about them shortly! Yeah, that’s going to be an oatmeal-centric post.

Third, I would like to introduce the newest members of my family:

This is 8 week old Jamal…

…and his brother, Juan.

Sigh.

Good day to you! It certainly is delightful being back in Minneapolis and the comfort of my own home. The weather here is ridiculously gorgeous at the moment. Think autumnal, bright, sunny and highs of 65. Amazing.

Dan and I got to go to a neighborhood potluck Sunday. We made a savoury bread pudding and since we were silly and took lots of photos of the process, I thought I would post a step by step. I know this has been the case a lot recently, but this is not the healthiest recipe ever but there are definitely steps you could take to make it more so, like using less butter, or substituting olive oil and using more milk instead of cream. Amping up the veggie content would also be a great plan.

If you’ve been reading my blog a while you will know that generally I do eat pretty healthily (I promise!) but I love exploring new recipes that are rich in flavor and all that jazz. Sometimes I make the effort to healthify recipes and other times I’ll follow them to the tee. It just depends on my mood. But I am a strong proponent of the idea that once you have reached a happy place with weight and exercise, everything in moderation is a recipe for happy times.

SO…..

Savoury Bread Pudding with Mushrooms and Parmesan Cheese
taken from epicurious.com

Ingredients

• 1 (1-pound) loaf crusty country-style white bread
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
• 1 large garlic clove, minced

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter
• 1 pound assorted fresh mushrooms (such as crimini, button, portobello, and stemmed shiitake), thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion
• 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced celery
• 1 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

• 3 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (we used 2 cups heavy whipping cream and skim milk for the rest)
• 8 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Step by Step Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Cut bread with crust into 1-inch cubes (about 10 cups loosely packed).

Look how fast my arm is moving – this was a work out!

Voila! Bread!

2. Place cubes in very large bowl. Add oil, thyme, and garlic; toss to coat.

3. Spread cubes out on large rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

4. Bake until golden and slightly crunchy, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Return toasted bread cubes to same very large bowl.

5. Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, onion, celery, and bell pepper. Sauté until soft and juices have evaporated, about 15 minutes.

6. Add sautéed vegetables and parsley to bread cubes.

7. Whisk heavy cream, eggs, salt, and ground pepper in large bowl.

8. Mix custard into bread and vegetables.

9. Transfer stuffing to prepared dish. Sprinkle cheese over. [This can be prepared 1 day ahead, covered and refrigerated].

10. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake stuffing uncovered until set and top is golden, about 1 hour. Let stand 15 minutes.

Ta-da!! This was delicious and people seemed to love it at the potluck. I think we could have used more mushrooms (we didn’t end up using the required amount) and more bread so that every bite had one of those elements. As it was this tasted like a sort of hybrid quiche/ souffle/ stratta, but super delicious. It could definitely be enjoyed solo with a salad but also makes an awesome side.

By the way love muffins, I am still catching up on a week’s worth of all your awesome blog posts so please bear with me if my commenting is sub-par. I’ll be all caught up soon!

What’s your favorite thing to bring to a pot luck?
I normally like to do something simple like a pasta salad – i.e. something that can’t go wrong!

Howdy ya’ll.

Well, I’m back from a glorious week in Austin. We saw old friends, drank beer, listened to awesome live music and most of all - ate all the food we could fit in our bellies! There are so many Texan delights that I miss since moving away from Austin. When I went to school there I enjoyed each and every one of them, all the time. It was a glorious, if slightly chubby era…

Dan and I actually had a list of food places we had to hit up during our visit and I’m happy to say we ticked every single one off our list!

Alright, people let’s get down to the good stuff. I didn’t picture everything but I got a good amount. Prepare to salivate (and prepare for some Texas sized portions and non-healthy fare…just giving you fair warning!)

It was a good friend of ours’ birthday last week and his heart’s desire was chicken wings from Pluckers – an old college classic. What you see before you is 40 chicken wings of various flavors and hotness, plus oodles of blue cheese dressing.

I’m not really a wing person so I just had three wings but I am proud and awed to tell you that three other people polished off the remaining 37 wings no problem. Hard core.

Okay, one of my all-time favorite Texas things is BBQ. Texas just wins at BBQ. Hands down. I tried out many a BBQ joint in my year studying here and while I’m no connoisseur, I have to say Salt Lick BBQ pretty much takes care of business.

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I’m sad that I didn’t get my own photo at Salt Lick but this depicts literally exactly what we ordered. Pork ribs, sausage, beef brisket, chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, bread, bbq beans, pickles and onions. So.Effing.Good.

It is such a massive spread. I personally don’t think much of brisket although good BBQ sauce can make anything taste amazing! The sausage here was out of control good and the ribs are divine. The BBQ pit is a sight to behold!

[source]

Ugh. So good. I couldn’t eat it all the time, but BBQ is 100% one of my favorite things to eat a massive spread of with friends.

We came home one evening to this:

Maybe not the best picture in the world but you can understand my haste and excitement! One of the guys we were staying with works at this place called Tiff’s Treats in Austin that delivers cookies and brownies. Yeah, you heard right. Delivers. How dangerous is that?!

He actually makes the goods and he baked us a gigantic box full of the brownies you see. What you cannot see is the five layers of cookies beneath the brownies: chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, white chocolate and macadamia, peanut butter and choc chip, and plain peanut butter. It took four of us three days to finish them off. I kid you not! I literally cannot not eat cookies/brownies etc if they are there. Especially when they taste as ridiculous as these do.

Another sweet place that Dan and I used to go all the time in Austin is this little gem called Veggie Heaven:

This place is right by campus and it sells delicious vegetarian oriental-style cuisine. It’s really a unique place – nothing like what you would expect from a standard oriental-style restaurant. They use a big variety of meat-substitutes which will seriously rock your world, including tofu, wheat gluten, soy bean nuggets, bean curd, and vegetable protein nuggets.

I am a huge fan of the Protein Garden which includes vegetable proteins, broccoli, baby bok choy, cauliflower, carrots, napa cabbage, onion and garlic cooked in some magical brown sauce and served with brown rice.

Best of all, it costs $6.95 – such amazing value! Delicious, fresh steamed spring rolls go for one dollar. Bam.

I’m pretty sure that the two times we ate at Veggie Heaven last week were the only times we ate in any way healthily. What can I say, I was in hard core vacation mode!

Another awesome place, we’d been itching to get back to was this pub called the Crown and Anchor that Dan and I spent many a summer afternoon at, drinking beer and cider and eating their incredible baskets of burgers and fries.

I don’t know about you guys but I am all about a soft burger bun with a good old fashioned thin patty, cheese and pickles. Just right. The fries at this place are amazing too – thin, salty and they have malt vinegar which immediately transports me home to England!

We spent the night at Crown and Anchor with a bunch of old friends drinking $6 pitchers of Lone Star beer (ridiculous!) and catching up before heading out to see a friend’s band play at this dive bar called Hole in the Wall. Many an evening was spent at that place in college…

Funnily enough, after our night at Hole in the Wall, Dan and I were feeling less than stellar the next day. It was time to hit up yet another old favorite. This time, the best hangover-killer of all time: Juan in a Million.

Best name for a restaurant ever? You decide. I don’t know about you but I like to eat chips and salsa at 10.30am.

Juan in a Million is awesome for a few reasons:

It’s a for real Mexican place serving up delicious tacos and a ton of other delights. When you enter this place, the owner meets you at the door and gives you the most amazing hand shake you will ever receive. If you’re a girl, it’s a little more gentle…if you’re a guy, it is a hybrid high five/hand shake/ smack. He is basically a completely awesome bad ass and always makes you feel like he completely remembers you. Brilliant.

The third awesome thing about this place is the “Don Juan” – El Taco Grande. Breakfast tacos are not something you can really find in Minnesota. Breakfast burritos? Yes. Real breakfast tacos? Not so much. I heart them. I do however recognize that this does not necessarily look all that gorgeous:

three flour tortillas, potato, scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese

You’ll just have to trust me. This is ace hangover food, although to be honest it did not taste quite as awesome as I remember. The $3.60 price tag though? Delish.

I’m sad I didn’t take photos of the other Tex Mex I ate because it was phenomenal. I had carnitas which never fail to rock my socks! Texans are so lucky!

Bye bye cacti