Cassoulet, Canard et Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a beautiful medieval small town 30 mins driving off Toulouse. It's a nice idyllic place with a small castle and towers surrounding the town. H took me to this place two Christmases ago to taste cassoulet at its birth place (??). Looking back, I don't remember anything particularly special about the cassoulet there. But I do remember farting all the way to meet my in-laws to be. Not exactly the best first impression. Blame it on the nerves, blame it on the beans, but it's all H's fault, really. 

Anyway, today I decided to grease my way up to H's heart (so he'll loosen the wallet a little bit) with cassoulet and confit du canard. You can eat cassoulet on its own, you can eat confit du canard on its own, but the french knows the best way to eat them is to have both on the same plate. The way it's done by ma belle mere, the way it's done in Bourdain's Les Halles, the way it's done in Carcassonne. 

recipe coming up.. ! 

Roasted Carrots & Lentil Soup

It seems that the number of sick person escalates to two. Tonsilitis, headache, runny nose, fever.. you name it. We got it all.

While H's taste bud has completely disappeared, I am not looking forward to another bland meal. And I have no strength to gut the fish to make fish soup. So I opted the easy way out. Lentil soup, or in this case, not so soupy.. H doesn't like his lentils to be submerged in water.

Original recipe is from here. Modifications made on the pepper - I don't have cayenne pepper blablabla. Instead, I used my beautiful tricolore pepper.

Make this one, sick or not. I eventually mashed it and it didn't look as pretty, but it's extremely tasty.

Oh yeh, I forgot to mention, I added chorizo for extra oomph :) Buon Appetito!