Pierogi Anyone?

Well, it has been a crazy past couple of weeks with lots of cooking and baking happening in our home!  One of the most exciting things we made were pierogies! We have made pasta by hand before,but this was a whole new ball game, and so satisfying. We own a Kitchenaid mixer, and we borrowed the pasta attachment from D's parents. The process was actually quite simple, just time consuming. But the recipe was HUGE! It said it made 6 dozen filled pierogies, but it actually made almost 12 dozen. Needless to say, we are set for pierogies in the freezer for quite some time. Well, maybe not, because they are so darn good, that we ate almost 3 dozen in 2 days when they were fresh!

We filled them with a mixture of roasted yam, leek, and smoked gouda from a local organic cheese farm. It was interesting, as the recipe said that the cheese added almost a bacon like flavor to the mixture, and being a vegetarian, I wasn't so keen on having bacon flavoring in my pierogies, but it added a whole new dimension to the flavors, and didn't taste meat-like at all, just nice and smoky.  We were very tired at the end of our pierogi marathon, but it was well worth the effort, as now we have a quick and esy meal in the freezer, and we know exactly what is in them. Our main problem with store bought varieties is that the dough contains eggs, which we are very particular about the kind we eat. Our eggs are vegetarian fed, organic, free range eggs from a farm just a few hours from our home. We know that the chickens are ethically treated, and have happy lives scratching in the dirt and wandering around outside. We also try to eat organic whenever possible, so now that we have made our own pierogi, we have control over the ingredients, which is a great feeling indeed. Have a great Monday!

Brenna