Pierogi Present

We received one holiday surprise this year that was above all other: Julia's Mom Mary's special, amazing, homemade, authentic Polish pierogies on Christmas Eve. This is not an informative entry – this is a brag piece. I do not know how to make pierogies and I will not be pretending to know so that I can tell you. That would certainly make them less special if I could make them whenever I wanted (despite the ominous amount of work involved). They'd be even less special if you all were making them all the time. Aren't I the jerk!

In case you're unfamiliar with pierogies, I'll give you a little hint about what's involved: potato, onion and cheese filling cute, little, delicious pasta dough dumplings. They are can be boiled (we had them that way), steamed or pan-fried (had some that way). I even saw them deep fried on a cooking show once, but I'm not sure if that is the Polish way and surely would be an awful amount of additional work. We ate them with sour cream, nonfat Greek yogurt and applesauce. I didn't like them with applesauce, and actually thought they were terrific and delicious just plain. Warm and soft on the inside with a luscious firm pasta outside. Heaven.

Julia took some of the extra pierogies that had already been boiled off and frozen and made a dinner based on a tip she saw on a show on pierogies. She baked the pierogies in a dish, with layers of thinly sliced red onion and a little butter, salt and pepper on top, and oh, was it divine! The nutty, slightly-browned, slightly-soft onions made this a lovely treat of a dinner.

So now you're a little hungry I bet. And you're probably even hankering for some pierogi, and you're mad because I didn't even bother to tease you with a recipe. Well, it's the time and love involved by the maker of the pierogies that really makes them worthwhile. However, if you must have some pierogi now, we have actually tried some pretty good frozen ones. Hey they ain't Mom's Authentic Polish but they ain't terrible. As an added bonus, we have seen a few brands that have almost no fat in them (far less than a gram per pierogie), and that is nice for a frozen food. Julia started making those in the toaster oven a few months ago, and this method actually gets them browned and puffy and the most enjoyable. Still not Mary's, but hey, we all can't be so lucky as to have her!

So now you have decided that you really need some pierogies now? And you have decided that they absolutely have to be HER pierogies? Well you are in luck. She boiled off a few extra trays of pierogies for us to freeze before she went home to Michigan, so if you're really nice and really lucky, you might score a few before we gobble them all up. I'd get over here by lunch actually. They might not last.