From Lutefisk to Pierogies!

Last weekend we had friends, J & H, visit us from Bloomington (MN).  We've know them for almost 20 years and now they enjoy coming up here--J likes to trim brush and apple trees up in the meadow (really!) and H likes to read, relax and be on vacation.  Both choices work for us!

But this time H brought along the ingredients to create and share some food specialities from her Polish background.  Pierogies!  Pierogies are little half-circle shaped dumplings stuffed with various fillings--hers were filled with a cheese mixture.

She began by making the cheese mixture and chilling that overnight.  Next came the mixture for the dough for the dumplings.  It took a few tries to get the optimal circle size to fit her crimper without having extra dough squeeze out the sides.

Next came deciding how much filling goes onto the dough circle.  She makes these about once a year but usually they do multiple batches and there is a whole assembly line of people for each step.  After that many, they all become experts at their step in the assembly line.  However, this time she was doing it all and every step started as an experiment.

Squeeze the crimper and then try to get it to release with the pierogi intact!

The first few are completed.

Then out to the rocker on the front porch to chill until dinner time.  Temps outside were perfect for chilling!

When it's time to prepare them for dinner, H & J (J came in from the woods!) began by boiling them for about 10 minutes until they floated in the pot.  Then they put them in the frying pan to give them a nice brown finish.  Add in some fried onions, sour cream and some Polish sausage from Kramarczuk's in Minneapolis and we had a great meal!  Thanks J & H!

I wanted to add a picture of The Lake today.  It was a deep, deep blue color with some pretty good wave action going on.  The wind was coming in strong from the north so I wasn't out taking pictures for long!

And back on the slough backwaters, a few guys braved the possibly-thin ice with their ATVs and set up an ice fishing site.  I'd be curious to know how thick the ice is there, but I guess they were pretty close to the edge of shore.  I don't think I've ever seen people ice fishing like that there.  The other river close by where people often fish, Flagg River, has open water now.  

Another weekend begins tomorrow and another month begins on Sunday.  Time to get going on more of my winter projects!