How to make Ukrainian perogies!

My family and I are very happy that we moved out here to small-town-Southern Ontario, but there are certainly things that we all miss about being in Winnipeg. Mostly, it's our friends and family, but we also miss the culture you find in bigger cities. We love taking trips to the larger cities around here - Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal - just for the culture. I miss the little communities of different ethnicities. Where we live it's Loyalist country. The majority of people around here are British or Mohawk. Sure, I know people of different backgrounds, but not like the big cities. I've always considered myself a "country girl" having grown up in a very small town north of Winnipeg, but as I get older I realize I was wrong. I enjoy the diversity, culture, noise and buzz of cities. Believe it or not, this was hard for me to come to grips with. You learn new things about yourself all the time, though, don't you?

In Manitoba there are a whole lot of Ukrainian people, so perogies are not hard to come by. In Winnipeg, there were many different places to get your perogy fill - Mom's Perogy Factory and Alicia's being my personal favourites. Where we are now, I can't find Ukrainian perogies unless I travel out further. They sell Russian perogies at our Farmer's Market, but they add some sort of seasoning salt to them and then fry them, and it just doesn't cut it for me. I've been craving perogies for a while now, so I added it to my menu. I spent a couple of hours making them this morning and let me just say - they are so worth the time and effort!

Here's my little How-To of the day. :)

First, wash and peel some russet potatoes (about 6). Cut them into chunks and place in a big pot of water. Bring them to a boil and cook until tender. Drain then, and then add some milk, butter, salt, pepper and a bunch of grated cheese (2 cups to start - taste it.. add more if you think you need it). Mash well. Set the potato mixture aside to cool.

If you want you can also add fried onions! That's also a tasty way to go. There are countless fillings for perogies, so have some fun.

Perogy Dough

(this makes about 4 dozen)

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 3/8 cup warm water

Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. In a measuring cup, add the oil to the water. Pour over the flour/salt mixture and mix well. Knead the dough until it is soft and elastic. If the dough is sticky add a little bit of flour, but try not to add too much extra or the dough will become difficult to work with. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and set aside for 15 minutes.

Once the dough is ready to be worked with, pull 1/3 of it off and, roll it out thinly (think pie crust) onto a lightly floured counter top. Use a glass, cup or round cookie cutter to cut circles out of the dough. Continue doing this with the remaining dough.

Place a rounded teaspoon full of mashed potato mixture into the middle of each dough disc.

Fold each circle of dough over into a half moon shape. Pinch the edges together to seal the seam.

In the meantime, boil a pot of salted water. Place about 5 perogies into the boiling water, and allow them to boil for about 5 minutes. Remove them with a slotted spoon, draining off any excess water. Continue until all of the perogies have been boiled.

When they're finished being boiled, you can freeze them on a wax paper lined baking sheet. Once frozen, place them into Ziploc bags. If you're like us, though, you'll have them all eaten within two days flat! I just put ours into this stainless steel bowl and added a bit of olive oil to keep them from sticking.

To heat them up before serving you can either boil them for a few minutes (my favourite), fry them in butter (Kyle's favourite) or heat them in a tiny bit of water and some butter without frying them.

Now go feast on your tasty bundles of hard work. :)