I love cassoulet with sausages; slow cookers are brilliant here, though you do have to do the initial boiling of the beans on the hob. Quantities are very much a case of whatever you feel like bunging in... large casserole dish even better as breadcrumbs go crisp on final cooking.
White beans, soaked overnight
1 onion, several cloves, 1 carrot
1 bouquet garni or whatever herbs you have to hand
garlic
sausages, bits of other fatty or cheap meat cuts(bacon, pork belly), chicken pieces etc
tin chopped tomatoes (optional: I tend to just use tomato puree)
some dry white wine if you're not feeding the kids!
Breadcrumbs
Put beans in a pan with veg and some of the fattier bits of meat. Bring to boil for 10 mins then shove the whole lot into a preheated slow cooker and leave for 2-3h on high.
Meanwhile brown the rest of the meat (the nicer bits, sausages, chicken legs etc)
Fish out the veg and fatty meat remnants from beans and discard. Drain the beans (saving liquid) and put half back into the cooker. Layer the sausages and other meat on top, add garlic cloves, tomatoes. Cover with rest of the beans, then the wine if used and enough bean liquid to just cover. Sprinkle over the breadcrumbs, then put back on to cook for about 2 hours.
At this point, test seasoning, stir together, add more liquid if needed and cover with more breadcrumbs and shove back in for a final hour.
This is my slow cooker adaptation of a Frances Bissell recipe I got years ago. My even easier version is to bung the parboiled beans, onion, carrot, tomato puree, ground cloves rather than whole ones etc plus just skinned sausages into the cooker, cover with liquid and switch on, forgetting about it for 8h. Done.
Can also do it overnight in a covered cast iron casserole. I bought my first piece of Le Creuset for this recipe.