christmas happenings

Last Monday, I arranged my first event at my new job...a holiday party for 24 at a local restaurant. It was important to me to have it come out perfect, because ummmmmm...well, because I really want to impress them so that they want to keep me. There was one hiccup, but otherwise it was a big success...Woo Hoo!

Last Monday was also Murray's first sleepover without me. Mom was kind enough to offer to watch him so that I could have a good time at the party and not worry about him. From what Mom said, he was a good little boy. Though, she could've done without his bony feet digging into her when he decided to wake her up by walking on her chest.

Another highlight so far this Christmas season was going over to Mom's house on Sunday to learn how to make her pierogies, which are a Christmas Eve tradition in our family. I asked my 12-year-old niece Christine to join us, and we had a great time. Murray was getting a bit underfoot, literally and figuratively, so I put him and his cousin Oscar out in the backyard. I got so involved in the cooking and writing down the recipe that I didn't even hear their barking. Mom finally went down to let them in and discovered it had been pouring and that they were soaked. Oops. Oh well, at least the temperature wasn't too bad.

That's all so far. Murray and I will be sleeping over Mom's for Christmas Eve. I'll fill you in on what Santa brings him. In the meanwhile, here's Mom's recipe for pierogies, which is very detailed because, what can I say, I'm anal...lol. I've added pictures of the different steps at the very end, which you can click on to enlarge.

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PIEROGIES

Pierogies are a semi-circular stuffed dumpling, which have strong ties to the Slavic culture.

Pierogies have become a Christmas Eve tradition in our family. Though, Mom makes them periodically throughout the year too. They can be made with other fillings, but we usually eat them with a mashed potato filling.

This is the recipe that was handed down to my mother from her mother-in-law (my grandmother), who was born of Ukrainian decent. Mom usually makes it by touch and sight, so the measurements are just estimates.

The following is a recipe suited for large gatherings, such as Christmas time. For a smaller meal, you'll want to half the quantities. Please note: you probably could make the mashed potatoes beforehand, but what's written below is how Mom does it, all intermixed.

• Peel and cut up potatoes and boil them in a small pot until they are soft when pierced with a fork
• At the same time, put a large pot of water to boil for the pierogies
• For dough, whisk 4 eggs in a large mixing bowl, add 3 teaspoons of salt and fill bowl half full of water. Continue to whisk and start adding all-purpose flour until consistency is too hard to keep stirring
• Put big handfuls of flour onto your work surface and add part of the dough. Gather in flour and knead dough until it is tacky not sticky
• When you think dough is ready, prepare it for rolling out by pressing down once, flip it, and press down once more
• Remember to check potatoes for doneness
• Roll out dough until the right thickness, flipping it periodically and rolling it in multiple directions, aiming for it to be round and about 1/16" to 1/8" thick (Note: If dough forms holes as you're rolling it out, it wasn't kneaded enough. So, just roll it all back together, add some flour, and knead some more before trying to roll it out again)
• Using a hamburger maker or a glass that's about 3" in circumference, cut as many circles out of the rolled-out dough as you can
• While waiting for the potatoes to finish cooking, put the circles aside, flipping them over so that the side covered in flour is against the table. Also put the spare dough aside to be re-used later
• You'll keep repeating rolling out the dough and then cutting the circles, but in the meanwhile, the potatoes should be done cooking, and you have to stop and make the mashed potatoes
• For mashed potatoes, drain the water out of the potato pot, add salt, pepper, 8 slices of american cheese, 2 sticks of butter, cover & let melt. Beat until smooth, not lumpy. (Note: Don't add milk like you might usually do for mashed potatoes, as they won't be the right consistency for the pierogi filling)
• Put about a tablespoon of potatoes into each circle of dough you cut out, fold over, and really pinch the ends together so that no openings can be seen, use some flour if you need to
• To cook pierogies, gently place 10-15 pierogies at a time into the boiling water, stir gently to make sure they are not sticking to bottom of pot or each other. They will float to the top when done, in approximately 8 minutes. Use slotted spoon to remove, put in strainer and rinse with cold water, cool, then rinse a 2nd time. (Note: The 2nd rinsing is really important, otherwise you'll wind up with just one big lump of dough) Keep repeating this until all the pierogies are done cooking.
• To serve, some people like to eat them at this point, either plain or with butter. We'll sometimes sample them, but usually when they'll totally cool, we'll place them in a plastic tub and then later on fry them up in some oil and serve them plain with butter or with fried onions. Other serving options include mushrooms and sour cream.

Some additional notes:

• You can re-use the leftover dough from cutting out the circles by combining it all together, add a small amount more of flour, roll out and cut circles. But anything leftover after that should be thrown out, as it will contain too much flour to be good.
• You can make the pierogies a day or two ahead of time if you're going to eventually fry them.
• While Mom was teaching my niece Christine and I how to make these, it took us about 1 to 1 1/2 hours to make them. We didn't count them, but we probably made between 50-60 pierogies from this batch.