Sausage cassoulet

A couple of weeks ago a post on Damsels asked about recipes from Jamie Oliver's "Jamie's Kitchen". I'm a bit of a JO fan and have all his books but when I picked my copy up to answer the query realised I haven't ever cooked anything from it! I have a bit of a "thing" about cookery books - Husband calls it an addiction, I call it "passion". I love reading them, I love flicking through them and I love cooking from them. But I have so many that I don't always pick new recipes out as I veer towards old favourites. So I set myself the challenge to pick a recipe from the book and here it is.

Ingredients (to serve 8):
2 handfuls of dried porcini mushrooms, broken up
8 thick slices of dry cured streaky bacon (I used cubetti pancetta)
A large bunch of mixed fresh herbs - thyme, rosemary and sage
2 red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1/2 celery heart, finely chopped
1/2 bottle of red wine
3 400g tins of peeled plum tomatoes
2 400g tins of borlotti or cannellini beans (I used 1 tin of cannellini and 1 tin of chick peas)
8 large sausages or 24 chipolatas
1 large stale loaf, crusts removed

Method
Preheat the oven to 220
Cover the porcini mushrooms with 450ml/1 pint of boiling water and anllow to soak until soft.
Heat a large casserole or roasting tray on the hob. Slice the bacon across into strips and fry in olive oil until crisp and golden. Add the onions, garlic, carrot, celery, bay leaves and the bunch of herbs tied together to the pan. Drain the porcini, reserving the soaking liquid, and add them to the pan. Fry gently for 5 mins. Add the red wine and simmer until the liquid has reduced by half.
Add the tomatoes to the pan, breaking them up. Then add the porcini liqour and the beans. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 mins
Lay your sausages on top.
Break the bread up into coarse, chunky breadcrumbs and toss with the thyme, a little salt and olive oil and sprinkle on top of the sausages.
Place in the oven for about an hour.

I served this with couscous but you could try mash. This was devoured by everyone and if you use good quality sausages is pretty healthy as the beans lower the GI and there are plenty of veg in there too. I will be making this quite a lot as although it needed preparatoin it left me a good hour free after making it to tidy up/play with the kids/surf the web!

Enjoy!