Cheddar & Onion Pierogis

I'm not sure if there is anything more comforting then a big bowl of starchy goodness in the form of homemade pirogi. Add some sour cream and caramelized onions and you will slip into carb coma of contentment, or CCC as I fondly call it.

Well then, Lets Begin:


For the dough:

3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons sour cream
3/4 to 1 cup water


For the insides:

1-1/2 lbs baking potatoes, peeled and cut into roughly 1 inch pieces
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic,
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 to 1 cup aged cheddar cheese
2 large onions
Salt and Pepper

I began by caramelizing the onions in 2 tbsp of the butter and a splash of water. I add just a bit of water, this helps the onion to cook evenly and become coated with the butter, by the time the water evaporates off the onions will already be translucent and ready to sweeten up! Once they look delicious to you remove from the heat and allow to cool.

At the same time I added the potatoes into pot of salted water and brought to a boil. Cook until fork tender and drain. Add the remaining ingredients except for the cheese and mash it all up! I like mine just a little chunky. Honestly, after I made this I almost didn't even make the wrappers. I almost ate them all as is. Next time I think I will do a double batch of just the filling!
The filling was pretty hot so I waited for it to cool before I added the cheese, I wanted more of a potato, onion and cheese rather then a cheesy-potato and onion.... if that makes any sense at all!

Next comes the dough. Honestly mix the wet ingredients together and slowly add in the flour until it forms a dough. Knead it until everything is just incorporated; the dough should be smooth and a little sticky. Wrap it in plastic wrap and allow it to chill out in the fridge for 20 - 30 minutes. This will allow it to rest, very important; and give your filling a chance to cool down before you handle it.

Once everything is nice and rested, take the dough out and beat the heck out of it! Just kidding, you will need to roll it out though. You may want to roll it out and then use a cutter to make them all nice and perfect but not me! I divided the dough into 8 equal sections and then continued to divide until they were the size that I liked. I like big rustic looking pierogi and made them as such. Here's a peek:

Looks like they are ready for a soak in a pot of boiling water. Once they float to the top allow them to cook for another 2 - 4 minutes depending on how large yours are. From here I plop them down into a hot skillet with butter and let them get nice and crispy. Top with additional sauteed onions and a little sour cream and you are ready for a CCC! Enjoy!

These fed two of us for 2 dinners and I wish I had've made more to put in the freezer. Don't be scared to double or even triple a batch!

YUM!

Stuffed Pretzel Bites

I know... I have been a very baaaa -ad blogger. I offer you my sincere apologies, I have just began a new job and it has taken over my existence. It is am amazing opportunity for me though and I am so very excited! It is all mellowing out though, all becoming 'normal' it is just a much longer commute, but I have made a few tasty treats that I would like to share with you.

Today it will be these stuffed pretzel bites!
These little suckers disappeared within minutes!
Make them right now!
I promise you will not be disappointed!

Just Look:

My goodness! As far as Savories go, it just doesn't get any better then this.

So anyways I will just get on with the recipe because that's what you really want
Trust me!

1 package of instant yeast
2 Tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 1/4 cup warm milk
2 1/2 to 3 cups flour
6 cups water
4 teaspoons baking soda
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1-2 Tablespoons coarse salt

Fillings of your choice!

Slowly heat the milk until it is warm to the touch but not boiling and add the brown sugar.

Add 2 1/2 cups flour and the package of Yeast to the milk. Stir with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. Add the remaining flour if you need to. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead a few times, form it into a ball and add the ball to a clean lightly oiled bowl. Cover with Plastic wrap and all to rise in a warm area for about 2 hours or until it doubles in size. The waiting really is the worst part! But in this case it is so worth it!

You will know it is ready when there are bubbles on the top and it is all big and puffy!

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 4 equal pieces. Lightly dust your hands and rolling pin with flour. Roll one of the four sections into a 12×4-inch rectangle. Fill the bottom 1/3 with the filling of your choice. I decided to do a few different ones including ham and cheese, cheese and caramelized onion, ham, cheddar and mustard and some of the last with Dijon mustard. Mmmmm... mustard! Roll it into a log and then cut into one inch pieces. Into nice little bites!

Boil up 6 cups of water in a pot and add the baking soda. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Boil pretzels in batches, cooking about 20 seconds each, making sure they are flipped. You will see them get all nice and puffy, and I've got to tell you I was worried about the cheese during this step, but if you are sure to leave them in for no more then 30 sec. your cheese will be fine!

Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until they resemble little golden gods that you must eat immediately.

Careful they are hot! and you must not forget this last delicious step:

Brush them with melted butter until they glisten and top with nice crusty chunks of salt.

I hope these tasty treats make up for my time away!!

Smashed Potatoes

Hello All! I have a tasty side for you today.
I've made these many times in the past and now I have finally taken pictures so that I can share them with you all! They are pretty simple and you need only a few ingredients. I would say that they are also something that has a bit of a wow factor.

Have a look at these:

A little soft and little crispy; they are very unsuspecting. Sometimes the simplest things really are the best. And all you need to do here is choose a bunch of baby potatoes. I used red and Yukon golds for a little variety. Dump them into the hot tub and boil until they are fully cooked and fork tender. Drain and dump them onto a baking sheet. Now comes the fun part, time to let out a little of your aggression with a potato masher! Well.. not to much aggression because you will just want to gently smash the potato to look like the one above. Next drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Toss in a 350 - 400 degree oven until they are crispy!

By increasing the surface area and exposing some of the fleshy inside you really get a lot of crunch while still keeping the soft and fluffy innards of a boiled potato. It would be a great addition to a roast chicken meal. So unsuspectingly delicious.

Cozy Cabbage Rolls

Here we are in the heart of fall; this time of year I always crave comfort food and what is more comforting then a warm meal that comes out of the oven? Mmmmm.... Cabbage Rolls. The epitomy of Ukrainian comfort food.


Often I find that people use too much ground meat and make them very large. So I went about an experiment. I made two different kinds of Cabbage Rolls, 1 that was made of ground meat and the other that was made of sauteed mushrooms. The both have the same ingredients other then the meat/ mushroom can you tell which is which:


They look very similar and oddly enough they didn't taste all that different either. I suggest mixing them up in a casserole dish if you are trying to cut down on red meat. I had to make both because of my meat eating partner. I enjoy meat too, but often opt to not partake and am always looking for ways to reduce meat with out having to substitute with a freaky soy product. These were both really good, even my meat eating partner had a hard time figuring out which was which! Here is the recipe:

1 large heat of cabbage
1/4 lb ground beef (the small package) or 1 lb mushrooms finely chopped and sauteed
1 carrot finely chopped
2 stalks of celery finely chopped
2 onions finely chopped
6 cloves of garlic
3 cups of cooked rice (whatever floats your boat)
2 eggs
medium pinch of rosemary
large pinch of salt & pep

1 jumbo or 2 - 3 regular cans of whole tomatoes

First pop a whole head of cabbage into a huge pot of boiling water. Martha says not to use an aluminum pot... I think that my pot is aluminum and they worked, but it could be something else. Feel free to take the risk if you must. Other people remove each leaf first and then boiled them separately. I just threw the whole thing in, accidentally forgot about it and them took it out. It was cooked through and the outer leaves weren't very pretty but the rest was great. Let it cool and then remove each leaf and set aside.

Then begin making rice. Just follow the package directions. Then move on to chopping the mushrooms (actually I ran them through a food pro until they were fairly finely chopped - you do need a little texture) and begin sauteing them with some Olive Oil and pepper (leave the salt out). In the meantime finely chop the celery, carrots, garlic and onions, again I used the food pro, if you choose to do this make sure that you do it in small batches, or else you will get a puree and you want more like pieces that are the size of rice grains, or a little bigger. Divide the chopped veggies into two bowls. Make sure the mushrooms are sauteed to the point that they have given up most of the water, then add them to one bowl and add the beef to another. Add one egg to each bowl and 1 cup of rice, mix it in and then decide if you want to add more rice. I went for it, but you might not want to and in the end you will be eating it so go ahead and do what you must!
This is how each looks, bad light I know but you get the idea!


Now you will want to empty your cans of tomatoes into a juice jug or bowl and whiz with a hand blender. I added a small handful of salt pepper, and a little less rosemary. Whiz until it is a smooth sauce.

Now assemble! Pour a little sauce into a casserole dish, take one cabbage leaf. If it is a big leaf, remove the bottom v shape of the stem, just the hard part so you end up with a small v out of your leaf. You can leave it in but it is trickier to roll. Just do whatever works for you. Add some filling to one side of the leaf and roll it up. Add to the dish and repeat until you are done. Top with a bit more of the sauce, cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour.
I serve mine with sour cream. Yum!!

Lasanga Roll Ups

Hello All! I am back, I do have a confession. I got a new camera at the beginning of August so technically I have just been taking a lazy summer break. Oh how I wish it was a lazy break, it was full of activity, every weekend something different. Every weekend something. And you know what disappoints me the most about summer - that I don't have enough of it, I know that we were lucky to have an early start to summer - That was so great. But remember when you were a kid and summer felt like it lasted forever? I miss that. Now summer is measured in about 8 - 10, 12 weekends if your lucky.

So to make up for lost time I present you with tasty tasty lasagna rolls:


These are a pretty easy to make but do take some time. I began by making the marina sauce so that definitely added quite a bit of time. I didn't really measure when making the sauce so I am going to suggest you use your favourite recipe or jarred version if your pressed on time. And I will take a rain check and remember to write down the ingredients next time!

Begin by boiling a nice big pot of water, when it reaches a rolling boil add in a handful of salt and 8 lasagna noodles. Cook according to package directions and lay out on a baking sheet lined with a tea towel. Make sure that the noodles keep keep their hands to themselves and don't touch.

Begin making the filling aka Spinachy and Cheesy Love

1/2 cup minced onion
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped mixed herbs
1 pkg frozen spinach - thawed and drained very well
1 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 1/2 cups shredded Parmesan
1 1/4 tsp each salt & pepper

Mince up the onion and garlic and saute until golden.

Add the rest of the filling ingredients except for 1/2 cup of Parmesan (save that for the top) to a bowl and give 'er a good old mix up.

Lay one of the noodles out on a dry counter and spread a little bit of the filling on it leaving a bit of space at one end. Like this:

Actually, maybe leave a little more then I did...
Also try not to make it to thick. Just about this thick:

And roll it up!

Pour a little bit of marinara into the bottom of a baking dish and add the roll. Repeat until they are all in the dish. Make sure to use a big enough dish that you can get all of the rolls as well as about 3 cups of Marinara. It is important that there is a good sauce to roll ratio as the filling is quite rich and the acid in the sauce helps to cut that so you can get perfectly balanced bit each time.

Top the rolls with the reserved Parmesan and bake in a 350 degree oven until it is warmed through and the cheese has melted into heavenly goodness.

Creamy Crab Spagettini

Oh Canada! Mmm.. Mmmm...
I am lucky to live on Vancouver Island, we have some of the freshest seafood around and it doesn't get any fresher then when you catch the main ingredient yourself! The crab from this dish came from the waters of one of my favourite places: Port Renfrew. The cool waters of the harbour at Port Renfrew are prime crabbing ground; especially during the late winter but also all year round. I absolutely love the Ocean and the beach so in honour of our 142nd Canada Day I created this dish. All red and white and filled with a local Canadian delicacy; dungeness crab.

This dish was delicious and quite simple to put together, I added sun dried tomato for some depth and also so it would complement the sweet crab flavour; and then topped it off with lots of Parmesan cheese for richness. Here is the recipe:

Oh! and don't worry, you don't need to catch the crab yourself; just make sure that you do use the fresh stuff that can be bought from the seafood counter, or your local fish monger. There really isn't room here for the canned stuff!

First things first! Create a crab stock, you only really need about 2 cups.

It is important if you can to cook the crab in the water that it came in, if not have it cleaned and halved and boil it for only a few minutes until it turns a deep shade of red. Cool and shell the crab, I tried to keep a few of the claw pieces intact for a garnish, but the rest will taste great no matter how it looks! Put the shell pieces into a clean pot of fresh water, about 4 - 5 cups; bring to a simmer and reduce until you have roughly 2 cups. You can add any vegetables that you would normally add to a stock, but in all honesty what your after is a deeper crab flavour for the pasta sauce.

I box of Spagettini (or enough for 4 ppl)
1 medium onion
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3/4 Cup sun dried tomatoes
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1-2 Cups of crab stock
1 Cup of Parmesan
Meat from 2 crabs
3 lemons
S&P
1 handful parsley

Once the stock is ready you can throw enough spagettini for 4 people in a pot and cook until al dente. In the mean time saute 1 medium onion in 2 table spoons of butter, once the onion is softened add 2 tablespoons of flour to create a roux. I actually cook onions with a little bit of water in the pan, it helps to create a more even heat for the onions and encourages them to caramelize, so I would add the flour after the water has evaporated and the onions begin to brown. Once the roux has browned add 3/4 cup of sun dried tomatoes, I used regular dried tomatoes (not in oil, but you can if you want), just slice them and throw them in as well as the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Add 1 Cup of the crab stock and 1 cup of heavy cream to create a sauce, at this time you can add both the crab meat and the pasta. Toss it all together with 1 cup of Parmesan cheese and the juice of another lemon. Feel free to add more Crab stock depending of the consistency, you want a nice rich and thick sauce that coats each and every noodle. Serve topped with extra Parmesan cheese, fresh chopped parsley, a wedge of lemon and an extra knuckle of crab right on top.

You are going to love this fun and festive meal! Make sure that you take a nice big bite with a little bit of everything so that all of those beautiful flavours dance in your mouth together.

Pork Chops with Apples and Onions

Yum!

What am amazing day! BBQ season is definitely here on the island so I decided to do something that I have never done before... make a rub! and I did it! and it was a lot easier then I thought.
Honestly I'm not a huge pork fan, and while I'm sharing secrets I ran out of propane and cooked these in a frying pan. Don't tell anyone, and seriously try it on the BBQ because these babies are good but on the BBQ everything is better.

So lets get on with it then:

Funky Pork Rub

2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup pepper
1/8 cup dry mustard
1/8 cup onion powder
1/8 cup paprika
2 tbsp dry rosemary
1 clove of fresh garlic

That's all I used!

I combined it, but only added the garlic to the amount of rub that I needed, you can keep the rest of the rub for later, but not with the garlic, I guess you could use the dry stuff... but I personally just think that's plain old wrong, but I always encourage others to take a recipe and make it how they like it so feel free, I won't send the garlic police.... not this time anyway!

So I rubbed down 4 pork pork loin chops and let them hang out for a while, the trick here is to really rub it in, get to know your meat and give it some love, so it loves you back!

Now onto the side, which in my opinion is equally as important, and was equally delicious.

1 huge or 2 medium onions sliced
3 mackintosh apples sliced
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp rosemary
salt and pepper

Start with the onions, slice them up and add them to a pan with 1 tbsp of butter and about 1/4 cup of water, the water helps to soften the onions and allows them to be insulated so that they cook evenly, it also encourages the sugars to come out so they get nice and caramelized, cook it over medium to medium high heat until the water dissolves and the onions begin to get golden, then add another tbsp of butter, the apples and the brown sugar, stir and let the apples begin to soften, add the rosemary and season with salt and pepper, this is where the tasting begins, I like to add just a hint of vanilla, for me it was around 1/8 of a tbsp but add a few drops at a time and taste until it has a little something that makes them say hmm... but not enough to make it seem sweet, like pie, the real trick to these apples and onions is that they are still savoury.

Once the onions and apples were seasoned and are getting to know each other you can put the pork chops on, I would have loved to BBQ them but as I sadly admitted before I cooked them in a medium hot skillet with a bit of olive oil for only a few minutes a side, it is very important not to let the pork dry out, use a hot enough pan that it will get nice and brown fairly quickly. I also brushed them with a little Cattleman BBQ sauce that I thinned out with a little bit of orange juice. After all of that, they should look this delicious:



And laid on top of a bed of savoury apples and onions it looks even more delicious: Hello BBQ season!