Pierogies, From Scratch

A weekend ago Ryan and I enjoyed this tasty meal.  There was only one problem with this delicious plate of pirogies.  Can you guess?  They were from the freezer.  While the taste good, and we added our own homemade touches, it was disappointing to know we could probably do this from scratch.
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Now the idea was formed, so when the weekend approached, it was time to execute.  First, finding a recipe was tough, and we thought about making it up as we went along, but it seemed like a recipe would be best since we had never made these before.  Then, while looking the recipe up online we discovered that we had two different opinions on these Polish treats.  After some research, it seems Ryan is used to what is spelled pierogi, and has a filling of just potato, then sautéed with onion, and I was thinking of the kind filled with potato and cheese, which comes up often spelled perogi.  I always eat them with the sautéed onions, mostly because that is how Ryan prepares them, but I was still thinking potato and cheese.  After discussing, we decided to go with a pierogi recipe, using just potato filling.  Well, potato, and then cream cheese for the fat, not butter. 
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I am going to make a major confession.  Ryan gets all the credit for this dish.  He started and I swore I would be right there.  I was helping a friend fix something, and it took a little longer than anticipated.  By the time I was finished, Ryan was nearly done with stuffing the pierogies.  I must applaud him for hard work.
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After boiling 5 pounds of potatoes, Ryan got to work mashing them up and chopping tons, and I do mean tons, of onions for the filling.
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The potatoes also had a lot of garlic powder and cream cheese.  These just might be the best mashed potatoes I have ever had.
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Then he got started on the dough.  I had no idea that cream cheese would be a dough ingredient, but it was.  I admit, this was not a low fat recipe.  Next time I think there would be room for alterations. 
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Here is when I came back in to help.  We have a limited amount of work space and only 1 rolling pin, so I let Ryan press on with the filling.
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Since this recipe makes so many servings, we decided to freeze the rest and bag them for later.  This means next time we want pierogies, we can boil up some homemade ones.
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There was obviously an abundance of them.  Oh, and they are a little larger than you would expect.  They seemed to have taken on a life of their own and just wound up being huge.  We may have gotten carried away, just a little.
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A-HA! Here is my work.  I pulled out my new mandoline and slices up a TON more onions.
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They got even bigger in the boiling water, as would be expected.
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By the time they came out they looked like giant Chinese type dumplings.
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After cooking up some onions,
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we added the boiled pierogies to the pan.
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Well, there you have it…
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Pierogies, from scratch!

After all that white wine, we decided to go for a bottle of red.  This we bought at a grocery store near our hotel in Paris, when we went over the summer.  This was a delicious Pinot Noir.  Absolutely fantastic!  If you really like wine, and buy it while traveling, I suggest going to the grocery store.  You can’t be the price, but the trade off would be that you have no idea what you are getting.  Honestly, in France we assumed that with an average priced (that means the average for the store, which was still cheap) wine, we really couldn’t go wrong.
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You may be new to my From Scratch Weekends series, so I will let you know that we always try to make this meal with a full set up, complete with candles.
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Part of my New Year’s goals included to continue with From Scratch Weekends, so stay tuned for more throughout the year.  The idea is that we get to really experience what goes into making the food and now we can say that we have made these foods before.  Last year include some homemade pasta dishes, sushi, and even beer.

QUESTIONS: What was the last thing you cooked entirely from scratch?  What is the one thing you would like to cook from scratch?  Any suggestions for a from scratch meal for us to make this year?

10 comments:

Andrea@WellnessNotes said...

Great job! Your pierogies look and sound wonderful!

I make a lot of veggie soups from scratch. I really want to start baking bread and making pasta.

chow and chatter said...

wow awesome I cooked these once with my Russian neighbor I invited myself he he

I cook everything from scratch well kind of not bread and pasta he he

Kristen (swanky dietitian) said...

These look excellent! I am super impressed. My friend made dessert ones one time from scratch. They were excellent!!
The last thing I made from scratch was probably a batch of cookies. I need to get on more from scratch cooking

Kimberly Peterson said...

That is so impressive that you decided to make them from scratch. I hardly ever make things from scratch unless the frozen ones tastes disgusting... an example would be homemade dim sum, I love making it from scratch especially since I have this recipe that makes the dim sum tastes as good as the famous ones they sell in Kuching (my hometown in Malaysia) and the frozen ones in Australia just don't taste the same.

I would love to make Sambal from scratch (another Malaysian cuisine) but the readymade Sambal from Asian groceries are pretty good, it almost is not worth the hassle to make it from scratch, haha.

I would probably recommend making chicken stock from scratch.. it just tastes soooo much better in your cooking, never tried it. Just heard from other foodies, hehe.

Good luck in your quest to make more things from scratch and congrats on this one, looks delicious and the abundance would've been quite satisfying!

Melissa said...

I'm always impressed when you make things from scratch. I'm Polish and my grandma loved to serve Polish foods. But she never made pierogies from scratch. Love it! Keep up the great cooking. :)

Unknown said...

Looks good! you know, I had never heard of pierogies before Muhlenberg!

sophia said...

Ooh hey!! I just made dumplings, too. Asian ones, and the skins weren't from scratch because I'm not as hard-core awesome as you are! But I plan to make pierogies some day...actually, to be honest, they've been on my list for ages! Ahh, so many things to make!!

Jessie said...

Nice job with your From Scratch recipe this weekend! You make pierogies look so easy. I admit, I've tried making pierogies once before, and they turned out awful. They just fell apart instead of looking gorgeous like yours. I often make modifications to recipes as I go along, but I think I should have stuck with the recipe that time. I'd love to try them again.

It sounds boring, but this year, I'd like to master a good whole grain bread. I often cheat by using a bread machine, but I'd love to make a loaf from scratch!

Gina; The Candid RD said...

I ate perogi's as a kid, quite often, BUT they were always frozen!! I did love them, even though they were frozen. I have never tried making them from scratch, but I think it's awesome that you guys did! The last thing I made from scratch was a whole grain pizza the other day. I also make blueberry chocolate chip ice cream last night, yum, it turned out spectacular.

MelissaNibbles said...

These look amazing! I love perogi's and I would happily drink that wine :)

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