We went to Jim and Ylda’s home for a fabulous meal of cabbage rolls and pierogis. They were so good that even though I don’t eat a lot I went back for thirds. I have always wanted to try making pierogis so I went home inspired.
The following day I mixed my first batch with a potato and blue cheese filling. There were a few problems though. There wasn’t a roller around so I used an empty wine bottle (the fun part was emptying the bottle; of course.) Also, I needed a larger rolling surface. Between Rosalie and myself we did get it done and it was delicious. Now I was in a fever to make a new batch with a different filling.
The next day we went in search of a roller and a larger cutting board. Both were found at our all-purpose Plastico store.
Back at the duplex, I whipped up another batch of dough and realized I had made an error. I was supposed to use hot water for the mix but I had used cold. Plodding on, I found that everything was getting really sticky. This time I finished the job with a meat and potato filling. It too was good.
The third batch was made using up all the leftover filling from the previous batches and again had trouble rolling the dough. Everything stuck to everything else. Not good!
While looking for more recipes I noticed that some of them said to roll the dough into little balls and roll them individually. This gave me an idea, so we went up to town and bought an inexpensive tortilla press.
We couldn’t try it out that day as we had to go to a meeting about the local Emergency Awareness program. It was a little depressing. They have some ambulances here but they are poorly equipped. The 911 system works but they speak little English and in one incident didn’t answer the phone.
The guy giving the presentation knows of these problems and is taking steps to correct them. He made an appeal for any used medical supplies that we could bring from Canada. Last year the Canadians and Americans brought supplies and someone brought a defibrillator. It doesn’t matter if the instruments are broken as the Mexicans are great at fixing and improvising.
The following day we tried out the tortilla press and it worked better than I expected. We did some with bacon/mushroom/green onion and potato and some with an apple and cinnamon filling. So now we have a freezer full of pierogis just waiting for someone to come along and try them out. That is if I don’t eat them all first.