My Canadian Menu, Inspired by CrowdStrike

If your life hasn't been impacted by the global IT outage by the CrowdStrike company as a result of the faulty update on July 19, I would say that you are one of the lucky ones. On that particular day, my fiance and I were supposed to fly out to Canada for a wedding, but we never made it. And while we are now in August, we are still experiencing the ramifications of it.

My fiance was pretty annoyed and upset by the whole thing, especially since his extended family does not gather often. We even contemplated whether or not we should drive, but we ultimately decided against it when we figured out that it would take us about twenty-four hours to make the wedding. It was for one of his close cousins, so he was pretty bummed to miss out on such a major event.

Even though it was out of my hands, I wanted to try and make him feel better however I could. While we weren't in Canada and I couldn't bring his family to us, I could try to bring a small part of the experience to him. So then I hatched the idea that dinner that evening should involve Canadian food.

I'm not a Canadian expert, so I spent some time researching and pulling these ideas together. Here is what I ultimately decided to keep on the Canadian menu.

It's the airplane we never got to board.

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Appetizer: Poutine

His friend recently returned from Canada, and mentioned how he basically ate poutine every day and everywhere he went in Canada. Poutine is actually one of the first things I think of when someone says Canada, so I knew that it was the perfect thing to start our themed meal.

I had him close his eyes so that I could bring him into our living room to surprise him. When he opened his eyes and saw the plate, he asked, "What is this?" There was barely a pause before he answered the question himself. "Poutine."

It made me smile as I explained my idea to him, to which he responded with, "You're so cute." And the smile he gave me was worth the hours I spent pulling everything together.

Since I was supposed to double-fry these, I put them on a pan while they cooled.

And that is how the meal started. He put on the final season of The Crown because we had been meaning to watch it together. So we consumed the piece of content while we consumed our meal.

I thought this recipe turned out pretty good for someone who had never made poutine before or even fried up homemade fries. The directions are straightforward, and I got the job done. Now I know how to make French fries from potatoes, and it's an accomplishment. As a potato entusiaist, it was a win all around.

The recipe I chose was this "Authentic Canadian Poutine Recipe" by Queenslee Appetit, and you can check it out if you click here. I would definitely recommend it for beginners.

My plate of poutine! I probably would use other toppings than cheese, because it wasn't so popular in my house, but that's a preference thing.

Main Course: Tourtière (French Canadian Meat Pie)

There were a lot of different options for me to choose from when I was researching for the main course. I chose tourtière because Asanti recently mentioned how he wanted a savory pastry. Since it is a pie with meat in it, I figured tourtière would cover those bases.

What surprised me about the tourtière was that it is best served at room temperature. It ended up at room temperature because it was the first thing I made. After trying it that way, we figured that we preferred heating the pie before we ate it.

The unique thing about the pie is the flavor of it. While I had all of the spices in my closet, I did not regularly combine and use them the way the recipe calls for. It was a satisfying experience to consume them this way. I can say that the flavor of the filling perfectly complimented the flavor of the crust.

The recipe I ended up using came from All Recipes, which has to be the first time I have used a recipe from this company. I remember downloading their app when I first started cooking, but I was never inclined to really use it. You can click here for the recipe if you're interested.

I haven't made a pie so pretty, and I almost didn't want to eat it.

Dessert: Butter Tarts..?

There is a question mark there because I had the intention of making butter tarts for our meal once we finished. However, we were so tired by the shenanigans of the day that he told me I didn't have to make them.

So I didn't, but I am excited to try them one day. Hopefully, I'll be in Canada at the time that I do. But that's all I have for my Canadian menu. I hope you enjoyed reading, and I will have to report if I ever make it to Canada.

Would I have been able to see this building at some point? We'll never know.