We are "immigrants" from the city who bought land right in "Ukrainian Country" in north-Central Alberta. We love all foods Ukrainian. For some reason (maybe easier to buy them, even if not nearly as yummy) I got out of the habit of making the perogies from scratch.
Many cultures have filled things: Chinese have dumplings, then there's ravioli, there are pot stickers, perogies, Austrian and German potato Knödl (balls of dough that have sweet or savory fillings). I've always wondered how these came about. I envision a hard-working pioneer woman having to feed a family with very little. Maybe she got tired of mashed/boiled potatoes, so to make cooking a little more interesting, she started putting surprises into dough pockets. Was it a way to break the monotony of the same foods for her family? As a way to express her creativity?
Our favorite is cheddar cheese/potato filling, but I really like cottage cheese (dry cottage cheese with eggs and dill), or potato with cottage cheese, or chopped onions fried with fresh cabbage, or mushrooms, or cooked and finely-chopped sauerkraut. Then for sweet perogies, you can use apples or blueberries. This photo is not of my perogies--downloaded it.
Back to the present. Yesterday I made sauerkraut perogies to go with the home-made headcheese (not made from any heads--I don't like fat meat or rind in my headcheese, so I cook pigs' feet and a lean cut of pork--the feet provide the jelly, but I give the feet to the dog when they have served their purpose).
I made the dough early in the afternoon so it could rest and become very elastic. The first few were rolled by hand, and that's no easy task with a very elastic dough. Then I remembered that I used to use my pasta roller for this purpose. Then the job was done in no time.
Food for thought: What if you woke up tomorrow without everything you did not thank God for today?
Liebe Gudrun
ReplyDeletewas du alles an Leckereien zauberst, wahnsinn, ich bewundere dich,
wünsche dir weiter Gutes Gelingen
ganz liebe Grüße
Evi
A good friend of mine is from Ukraine. One year, for our trip to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival in Asheville, NC, she decided she would provide all of the meals. Everything was delicious, but she said we should drink shots of vodka with everything. Since we were all knitting, we passed on the vodka. Seemed wise. If we drink and knit, we have to do too much un-knitting!
ReplyDeleteThe perogies look delicious. Perhaps your food for thought question would be better phrased as
ReplyDeleteWhat is you woke up tomorrow without the things you did not thank God for today.?
I stole this from Facebook. I like your change better. I understood what it was trying to say, but felt it could have been phrased better, but didn't spend much time figuring out how. thank you for doing that for me.☺
Delete