Canadian Meal

This meal showcases recipes from Canada, our neighbor to the north. When I decided to cook a meal from Canada I was looking to cook traditional Canadian dishes. I found the recipe for bean cassaoulet and decided to build the meal around this dish.

Cassaoulets are predecessors of casseroles and came to the US and Canada with the immigrants from Europe. They are originally a dish from the French countryside. It takes time to cook a cassaoulet but the depth of the flavors is amazing. As a side for the cassaoulet I made a potato salad. Potatoes mashed or in salads are a favorite in our house so this potato salad was an obvious choice. I love wild rice. My daughter says she feels like she is eating leeches but I think it is very flavorful and filling. I had some in the pantry and it went very well with the cassoulet. Summer months are perfect for ice cream and sherbet so the dessert pretty much picked itself. The addition of lemon juice in the sherbet brings out the tangy flavors of the strawberry and makes for a refreshing but not overtly sweet dessert.

The new ingredient I tried was organic Dijon mustard. I had always used the yellow mustard before. I was looking up the ingredients and found turmeric was added to the yellow mustard. I am glad I decided to try the organic Dijon, all the flavor without the overpowering color.

Here are the recipes for the dishes on the menu

• Great Northern Bean Cassoulet 
• Prairie Potato Salad 
• Wild Rice 

And for dessert

• Strawberry Sherbet