However you spell it and whatever fillings you choose, I'm sure we can all agree that there is a common love amongst us for perogies! They are a simple food yet delicate and some skill required to make them.
I don't know too many people who could resist mashed potatoes mixed with bacon, onion and cheese that are wrapped inside of dough. Then they are boiled and fried up with more onion and dipped in sour cream. Commence drooling! Let's not forget about blueberry dessert perogies either. Yes, that is right! Perogies are perfect for dinner, or any meal of the day in my opinion and they are also perfect for dessert too.
That is why four friends, one husband and one apprentice (a friend who stopped by after work to hang out and help a little bit) got together at my place a couple of Saturdays ago and made close to 450 of these delicious creations.
I have nicknamed us "The New Generation of Baba's". Barb is full Ukrainian, I'm half Ukrainian, Jessica is an Honorary Ukrainian by marriage (and perogy making skills) and Kristina is Croatian which is part of Eastern Europe. I'm not sure what Jackie "the apprentices" background is but she is an Honorary Ukrainian for coming out and helping. Darcy, my husband can be an Honorary Ukrainian too by marriage and for helping to make the day run smoothly.
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| The new generation of Babas |
We each brought a different pre-made filling and since I was hosting, I supplied the ingredients for the dough. The different fillings were: potato/bacon/onion, potato/cottage cheese, potato/marble cheese and blueberries.
We had not seen or had a perogie that was made with whole wheat flour before so we decided to give it a try. Remember, we are the new generation of Baba's! We used Barb's Moms' recipe and made one change to it, eliminating two cups of all-purpose flour and replacing it with two cups of whole wheat flour. We all agreed that it was the perfect amount and anything more or less would probably not have worked out as well.
We were hard at work from two o'clock in the afternoon until about 7:30 in the evening. Making such a large batch of perogies is definitely an all day activity and should ideally be started in the late morning. Due to every one's schedules, we had to start later but I think we all agreed that the next time we do this, we're going to try and start earlier.
I had a fantastic day with my friends and we all went home with enough perogies to stock our freezers with and to show off at Christmas dinners! Making perogies with my friends feels like the start of a beautiful tradition that I would like to continue with. I didn't hear any disagreeing from any of them so next year, we'll hopefully do this all again.
Here is the dough recipe that we used which makes about 150 perogies per batch. The dough also freezes well.
16 cups flour (14 all-purpose and 2 whole wheat)
1 tbsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup oil
6 cups warm water
Mix wet ingredients together and add to dry ingredients, mixing and kneading well. The dough will be quite sticky and will require lots of flour while rolling it out. Roll dough out to 1/8" thickness. Cut circles out using biscuit cutters that are about 3" in diameter or a drinking glass or soup can works well too.
Filling:
For the amount of perogies we made, we each used 5 pounds of potatoes and mixed it with various fillings:
- Potato/cottage cheese: I simply mixed one large container of cottage cheese with the mashed potatoes. You could also just use dry cottage cheese instead of adding potato to the filling.
- Potato/bacon/onion: Fry one package of chopped bacon with one large chopped onion together and mix with mashed potatoes
- Potato/marble cheese: Add 2 cups of shredded marble cheese to warm, mashed potatoes and mix to combine and melt.
- Blueberry: We added about 6 blueberries to each perogie and once boiled and ready to serve we will sprinkle icing sugar over top.
Place about a tablespoon of filling in the middle of the dough, fold dough over to form a semi-circle and pinch closed using the heat of your fingers to seal the edges.
We lined cardboard boxes with tea towels (lesson learned, do not use cheap tea towels from the dollar store as you'll be picking fibers off of frozen perogies). We placed the perogies on the tea towels and since it was cold outside, we placed them outside to freeze.
After freezing the perogies overnight, I divided the perogies up by fillings and labeled the freezer bags. I placed one dozen into each bag and placed them in the freezer where they await consumption. Since having our Perogy Making Party, I've tried all of the different perogies and I'm very happy with them and they are so much better then store bought!
