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. :)

How to make basic sushi rolls!

The past few days have been pretty hectic. Avery has been horribly sick all week and has yet to make it to school at all. He got sick on Sunday afternoon/evening, and basically spent all of Monday, Tuesday, and most of Wednesday in bed. He's barely eaten anything in days, so I've been trying to force him to eat as much as he can today. He's weak and tired and still coughing, but the fever seems to be keeping at bay. My poor big kid. The days have also been busy with errands, taking kids to dance classes, Rhianna getting her competitive dance invitation for next year (we are all very excited about that!), and watching Tiernan during his track and field meet. He rocked that shotput! He always was an arm strength kind of kid. I can still picture him, clear as day, army crawling around the house. He didn't even try to use his legs when he crawled! It was all arms dragging him around.

Needless to say, dinner has been nothing special for the past couple of days. Yesterday it was fried egg sandwiches, the day before? Frozen pizzas! Certainly nothing to blog about. Dinner for today is made and ready to be eaten, thankfully. I'm looking forward to something a little more nourishing to feast on.

As you can tell in the photo, I made some veggie sushi. This is a favourite around here for dinner. It's also a favourite for the kids' school lunches. I promised my friend, Karen, that I would do a step-by-step post about sushi making, so here it is. This is very basic sushi rolling, and it can get a lot more fun and exciting as you get good at it.

I prep my vegetables before I even start the rice. (This picture shows far more veggies than is needed, but we like to snack on them over the next couple of days.) Here I have some thin asparagus that I trimmed and cooked for a very few minutes in some boiling water (making sure to keep it bright green). I took a yam and sliced it into fries. I tossed it in olive oil, sprinkled with salt and cooked it on a baking sheet in a 325 oven until tender. I have some thinly sliced coloured bell peppers (yellow, orange, green, red). I also have my favourite vegetable - mushrooms!

Sushi Mushrooms

large container of cremini mushrooms

2 tbsp sugar

4 tbsp white wine

6 tbsp soy sauce

Slice the mushrooms thinly. Mix the sugar, white wine and soy sauce in a wok and heat it over med-high heat. Bring it to a boil, and then leave it on a low boil until it reduces by about half. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender.

Try not to eat them all before you get to making the sushi rolls... like I do! ;)

Rinse your rice thoroughly (about 3 times) and then drain completely (15 minutes). We use 3 rice measures (3 cups) for this. Once it's cooked, let it sit in the rice cooker on "warm" for another 10 minutes. While the rice is cooking, mix together your sushi vinegar.

Sushi Vinegar

(for 3 rice measures)

8 tbsp rice vinegar

4 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Mix together in a glass measuring cup. Heat slightly in the microwave to dissolve the sugar. Set it aside until ready for use.

After the rice is ready, add the vinegar slowly while using a spatula to separate the rice a bit. I don't use quite all of the vinegar mixture.

When the rice is room temperature, the rolls ready to assemble!

Place your nori sheet on the edge of a bamboo placemat. Spread your prepared rice over 2/3 of the nori sheet, leaving some space at the end furthest away from you.

Add your veggies to the nori sheet & rice. Try not to add too many or your rolls will be too stuffed and they won't form properly. Now it's time to start rolling!

Take the bamboo placemat, and use it to start rolling the nori over the veggies. Take your fingers and lightly press the nori around.




Pull the placemat forward a bit, and continue to guide the rolling, using your fingers to press it together.

Ta-da! You have successfully rolled a sushi roll! To cut the sushi rolls, start by cutting them in half. Then take those halves and cut them in half. Do that one more time with all of those halves.

Now go enjoy your rolls! Scrumptious! :)