Mr. Redux:

Cassoulet! Ah yes!!! I'd love to get your recipe. I used to have it a long time ago on a fairly regular basis and loved it. I'd forgotten all about it until I went to a dinner of soul food cooking, and someone brought a baked lima bean dish that tasted much like cassoulet.

One thing that I've been doing these last three years is revising old recipes to cut down on sugar and cholesterol. Some things work better than others. I've reached the point where my wife actually seems to prefer my spaghetti & meatballs made with whole grain spaghetti, and meatballs made of a mixture of turkey sausage and ground turkey. I've converted all of my pasta dishes that way, and while some (like baked ziti) don't measure up, at least I don't feel like I need to serve them on a tombstone, like the pasta I used to make.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a soup and casserole cook book that has a recipe for cassoulet in it. The italian sausage and bacon give it much of it's flavor, and I'm sceptical how it will taste substituting turkey sausage and turkey bacon. I doubt that it will be anywhere near as good, but I'm going to give it a shot. The good news is that these last three years, I've kept my weight 30 pounds below where it was for many years, my energy level is high, for a 71 year old, and my cholesterol and blood sugar are good without medication, even though I am diabetic. Whatever taste I sacrifice in cooking is more than made up for with my greater taste for living.

Jerry