Thursday, December 24, 2015

Merry Christmas

It's a family tradition (on my mother's side) to make pierogi for Christmas Eve.



How cute is this apron?  My oldest daughter gave it to me for Christmas a couple of years ago. You can find it on Etsy.

My grandparents immigrated from Poland near the Russian border.  That said, I've never had a pierogi filled with mashed potatoes.


Here is a pic of me with my babcia, and of course, my siblings.  This is how I remember her.

The two fillings my babcia made were:
1) ground beef with onion and hard boiled egg
2) farmer's cheese with onion and raw egg

We've adapted the recipe over the years, including following the ravioli dough recipe in the Fanny Farmer cookbook, using ground chuck and ricotti cheese.

This afternoon I managed to get 3 dozen made (3 batches of dough, 1 lb chuck and 1 container cheese; dough rolled, filled, boiled) in two hours.

Then comes the delish part, frying them in butter (Kerry Gold, of course) and dollaping with sour cream.

I like to serve them with spinach salad and cranberry sauce.

I'd like to serve pickled beets, but I'd be the only one eating them.  However, my nephew has a great recipe that doctors them up with balsamic vinegar, feta cheese and pecans.  I think I just talked myself into that for next year!

Whatever your holiday traditions, I hope they are memorable!

And just to throw in some papercrafting.... this is a Gecko Galz design team make from last year.



4 comments:

Valerie-Jael said...

Lovely photos, love the sound of your pierogi, I love them. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year, hugs, Valerie

Sisterhood of the Muse said...

L♥VE the pierogi apron! And your dish of delights looks yummy. My Grandmother was from Płock near Warsaw. We had the potato filling in our pierogi...and boiled, not fried. But my favourite was always Gołąbki...the Heaven on the tongue cabbage parcels!
Loved reading your post! Have a WONDERFUL Christmas!

Jackie PN said...

What a fabulous post Helene!!
First off thank you so much for leaving the lovely comment on my blog- you made my heart smile!
Next, I love pierogi's and get them fresh from a church sale every year-certainly not as fresh as your homemade ones though!! I loved to read about your family, about their traditions and especially loved seeing the photo of you and your babcia! Such a wonderful share! Thank you and Happy New Year to you and your family!!
hugs,
Jackie P(Paninski)Neal

Dana Tatar said...

Sounds delicious! My husband's family is Polish and we recently spent a day making Pierogi. We made a beef/onion/farmer's cheese filling. I'll have to try adding hard boiled eggs next time. We also make less traditional loaded baked potato and pizza fillings. :) It is too bad we don't live closer, we could prep pierogi and scrap together. Happy New Year!

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