I've decided to finally approach my fears head-on and make cassoulet. I've searched high and low for a good recipe and found a couple of great blueprints. I linked to this extremely detailed post on cassoulet when I spoke of it before, and I'm printing it out to use as a guide through my adventure.

Before you can make cassoulet, you have to decide how you're going to handle the meats. Most cassoulets are centered around duck, and use several parts of the bird. A classic rendition has the chef roasting the duck, rendering the fat, and making a 'confit' of the leg and a demiglace (French for stock) of the carcass. What's more, after all that, you have to select which other meats to include.

I made a critical decision when faced with my favorite butcher's meat counter and decided to buy duck confit already made. Brilliant no? It's pictured here. I also decided to go without the authentic duck stock and just buy storebought chicken broth. Hey, I don't have 48 hours to make this thing. I need cassoulet to be easy, or it's not happening.

Want to cook this live with me tonight? You'll have to head to the market. Here's what you'll need:

• One leg duck confit, from your local gourmet meat counter (I got mine from Pastaworks)
• 3-4 cups poultry stock (I bought one of those cartons of chicken broth)
• One or two "garlic sausages" (mine are roasted garlic rosemary pork sausages, again from Pastaworks)
• Either one or two other stew-appropriate meats, about a pound each (I picked out an interesting-sounding bison stew meat my butcher said would be good in the cassoulet - you could use beef round, lamb or pork ribs, for instance)
• About 1/4 pound of bacon
• 2-3 cups dried white beans (mine are navy beans from the bulk aisle)
• 2 carrots
• 2 ribs celery
• 1 large yellow onion (or two small)
• garlic (Butter Pig has you roasting a whole head - I'm going to skip that and use several cloves, I think)
• 2 cups fresh breadcrumbs (I'm just using the end of a loaf of French bread)
• olive oil or butter
• salt, pepper and thyme

For equipment, you'll need a large casserole dish, at least four quarts - if you have a Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed, oven safe pot, that could work great - and a broiling pan for your duck confit. You'll be cooking, and setting aside, several ingredients - you can either use multiple skillets to get this moving faster or just have a couple of bowls available to set your cooked ingredients in while you're working.

Great! Tonight I'll start cooking around 5 p.m. EST. I look forward to cooking with you all!

Update: Here are my step-by-step instructions, with photos; and the finished product is delicious! I'll definitely make this again. I could do it! I'm ridiculously proud of my achievement. It's just casserole. But such casserole, full of the flavor of hours of cooking and several kinds of meat. Totally worth the effort.