Thursday, August 22, 2013

Homemade Perogies

In recent years, I have become quite a fan of perogies (mainly because of my couponing).  Well, one night, I was watching Food Network, as I do every night, and perogies where the topic.  I have only had perogies with cheese and potatoes, but long have I been curious to try them with other fillings.  So, I went to the fridge and realized I had everything I needed for a perogie night!  The great thing about perogies, like ravioli, you can stuff them with whatever you want!  I just happened to have cabbage, potatoes, cheese, and homemade pork sausage on hand........so, that is what I stuffed mine with.

Ingredients
Dough:
4 cups all purpose flour
1 Teaspoon of salt
2 Teaspons vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1 cup warm water
2 eggs, (one egg beaten with water to seal perogies)
Filling:
1 pound of pork sausage
1/2 head of cabbage 
1 cup of shredded cheese
5 cups of mashed potatoes (prepared or homemade)
2 tbsp of red wine vinager
Salt & pepper
Other:
1 tbsp butter
1 onion

Directions
Mix dry ingredients for dough.  Set aside.  Next mix the wet ingredients (one egg needs to be set aside to seal the perogies).  Mix the wet into the dry.  Mix until the dough forms a sticky ball.  Place your dough into a greased bowl, and let sit for 1-2 hours in a warm place so the dough can rise.
While you are waiting for the dough to rise, start in your filling.  I cut the half head of cabbage in half   One half I sliced and boiled with salt, pepper, and the vinegar for the filling, the other half I sliced and cooked them with the onion in butter to serve with the perogies.  The I took about 10 potatoes (5 cups mashed), washed, peeled, chopped, boiled, and mashed them.  I mixed in the shredded cheese and set aside.  In a separate pan, I cooked up the ground pork sausage.  I kept the little bit of grease in the pan for extra flavor.  At this point, you can mix all the ingredients together to make one filling, or use them as seperate fillings.  
In a pot, boil some salted water.  On a floured board, roll out the dough to desired thickness.  I roll mine until it's a bit thinner than a pie dough.  Grab a round cookie cutter (or a wine glass like I did) and cut out your perogie dough.  If the dough isn't thin enough, feel free to roll out the individual circles.  To fill your perogies, hold the dough in your hand, place a scoop of your filling in the middle, brush the egg wash around the edges, then pinch the two sides of the circle.  Place your perogies on a flour sheet until you are ready to boil them.  When you boil your perogies, place about 5 in your water at a time.  Once they float, they are ready.  Next, I fry  the cooked perogies in a pan with some oil and butter.  Once they are brown on each side, they are ready to serve!  Enjoy them with the cabbage and onions, peppers, sauerkraut  sour cream, or by themselves!

Perogies might seem labor intensive or difficult, but they are quiet easy to make, and well worth it!  FYI, this recipe make a bunch of perogies (like 90+), so I only used half of the dough for this recipe (I froze the other half for another time).