Pierogies with Bacon and Peas

I realize this recipe is not for everyone (including members of my own family), but it's a comfort dish to me, and maybe will be for you. It's easy -- you can whip it up in less than 25 minutes, and it's good rib-sticking food for autumn and winter. Because the menfolk in my family will not eat it, ahem, I save this dish for a night when just Faith and I are home and we both love it.

The recipe came from Cooking Light (though I doubt the "lightness" of it), and I make it almost the way it's written -- a little less bacon and onion and regular sour cream instead of low-fat. I am posting it the way I make it. Be sure to slice the onion like an apple so that the pieces are big enough for picky onion eaters to remove them.

This is a great dish to serve for the feast of St. Faustina, Blessed John Paul II, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Teresa Benedicta (martyred in Poland) or any of the Polish saints, as pierogies are a traditional Polish dish.

Pierogies with Bacon and Peas

12 frozen potato and onion pierogies (such as Mrs. T's)

4-6 slices center-cut bacon

1 onion, peeled and sliced vertically

1 t. sugar

1/4 t. dried thyme

1 cup frozen green peas

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup sour cream

Place frozen pierogies in a bowl of tepid water, high enough to cover them.

Cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet until crisp. Remove bacon; crumble. Increase heat to medium-high. Add onion, sugar, and thyme to drippings in pan; sauté 5 minutes. Stir in peas; sauté 1 minute. Drain pierogies and add them to the skillet, Salt, and pepper; cook 30 seconds. Sprinkle with crumbled bacon. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Serve with sour cream.

I suggest serving with warm applesauce, or a green salad, and soft rolls.

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Source: modified from Cooking Light

Polish Pancakes: Naleśniki

When I realized only the two younger children and I would be home for dinner on the Feast of St. Faustina, yesterday, I decided not to make our traditional pierogie dinner. While the kids don't mind plain pierogies, the dish I usually serve on St. Faustina's feast day has peas and onions, and they are not huge fans, though Doug and I very much enjoy it.

Instead I was thinking "pancakes," because it was a dish my mom would often cook for us when my dad was absent from dinner. It was cheap and easy and we preferred it to just about any dinner food. ;-) So pancakes and bacon it was, but these were no ordinary American pancakes. I did a little research and found that Polish pancakes are a real treat, and nothing like their American counterparts. The pancake itself is very thin -- crepe-like. And they are filled with yummy things and rolled up, and often baked or fried again. I decided to make the traditional cheese naleśniki, which reminded me very much of a blintz, which I have a few times and very much enjoy.

I topped my own Naleśniki (according to Google translate pronounced nah-leh-shneek) with warmed up Marion Blackberry jam, as did Faith, but Noah used pancake syrup, even though I told him the Polish don't have Eggo syrup. I served them with bacon, in the American tradition. I have not a drop of Polish blood, and have never eaten authentic Naleśniki, but I did enough research and combine what looked like authentic recipes, so I think we came pretty close. These are a little messy to make, but once you get a rhythm going of making them, they are a pretty easy dish to prepare.

Faith ate one pancake, and was full, so I would count on one for each small child. I messed up one of the "crepes" but would have had ten if not for the first mess-up.


St. Faustina, pray for us.

 Naleśniki

10 pancakes/rolls

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Pancake:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/2 cup lukewarm water

4 large eggs 

1/4 cup butter, melted

3 T. sugar

Pinch salt

three or four tablespoons melted butter

Filling:

2 cups solid yogurt cheese (see note below) or, alternately, ricotta cheese

2 egg yolks

1 whole egg

5 T. sugar

2 T. flour

2 t. vanilla

Place pancake ingredients in a blender and whirl until combined. You could also use a mixer but the blender makes it easy to pour from.

Stir together filling ingredients until combined.

Butter a 9 x 9 dish. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Over medium-high heat, heat a large non-stick skillet. When it is hot, butter it, using a heat-safe pastry brush and melted butter. Pour a very thin layer of pancake batter into skillet and rotate until a large part of the bottom is covered -- just a thin layer, but not so thin that it falls apart. You shouldn't be able to see through it, but it should not be anywhere near as thick as an American pancake -- it should be crepe thin. Cook until edges begin to brown and then dump it -- upside down -- onto a buttered platter.

Butter the skillet again and pour in more batter.

On pancake you dumped out, spread a thin (about 1/8 inch) strip from edge to edge down the center of the pancake. Fold one uncovered third over the filling , and then the other. Then roll it up from one short end. Place seam side down in dish.

Repeat with all pancakes, having one cooking while you are filling the other.

When your dish is full, brush the tops with melted butter and bake for 30 minutes, or until they are lightly browned on top.

* For yogurt cheese, I started in the morning and spooned 2 to 3 cups of good, 2% Greek yogurt into a cheesecloth-lined strainer (you could also use several layers of paper towels, and you can also use whole milk yogurt; I would not use non-fat myself). Place strainer over a bowl to collect whey. Refrigerate all day until you have a very solid ball of yogurt cheese -- it should be the consistency of ricotta cheese. If you start with regular yogurt instead of Greek (in which the straining process has already been about 50% done) you'll need about 4 cups yogurt and you may want to start the night before to leave enough time to get a nice solid ball.

Polish Kremówka Papieska

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With three big events on the Catholic calendar yesterday I had a hard time deciding which to celebrate. It was the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, for whom I have great fondness, the feast of Divine Mercy, for which I have great devotion, and the beatification of our blessed Pope John Paul II. Hmmm...which to celebrate?

Well, I ended up praying the prayers of the Divine Mercy throughout the day, preparing an Italian meal (which covered St. Joseph in my mind) and enjoying a wonderful a Polish dessert, supposedly the favorite dessert of Pope John Paul II. It was a full and complete day. ;-)

This dessert is one that will be an annual treat on October 22 the new feast day of our beloved Blessed John Paul II. What a treat to look forward to -- like a giant cream filled pastry. Yum! I used the "easier" of the two recipes found at Catholic Cuisine and it turned out just wonderful (but I am wondering how that other one would turn out...might have to do a test run). With just the purchase of a box of puff pastry and cooking a quick pastry cream, the entire dessert was finished. Just a few hours of chilling is all it needed (and it's just as tasty this morning, so don't worry about those leftovers!). I'm not certain how authentic this recipe is, as the video at Catholic Cuisine states the cream cake has a shortbread crust and a pasry top, but it was a delicious attempt at this ethnic dish.



I struggled with the pronunciation of this heavenly treat, but after watching the video at Catholic Cuisine it seems the pronunication is: Krem'-ōf-ka Puh-pes'-ka -- not as complicated as it looks.

I am posting the recipe just as Jessica posted it at Catholic Cuisine, but just so you know I did not bake the pastries with a baking rack on top. I did, however, push them down lightly with a large spatula (just to push some of the air out) halfway through the bake and at the end. My total bake time was 25 minutes. Also, I pulled the pastry out of the freezer and while it thawed, I cooked and chilled my cream -- kind of backwards, but it worked. After the pastries were baked and almost completely cool, I spooned on the chilled cream. Because the cream was set, it didn't run and didn't require the use of the sided dish as a mold, I just plated it on my serving platter and chilled it for several hours before serving. The whipped cream and strawberry are optional, but special.

Polish Kremówka Papieska

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2 sheets (1.1-pound package) frozen puff pastry dough, thawed

1 recipe Easy Pastry Cream (see below)

Confectioners' sugar

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out each piece of puff pastry slightly to blend the seam lines. Without cutting all the way through, lightly score each pastry sheet into 9 sections. Sandwich each puff pastry sheet between two pieces of parchment paper and two cooling racks. This will keep the pastry flat but still flaky. Bake 15 minutes, remove top rack and top sheet of parchment paper. Replace rack and continue to bake until golden and crispy throughout, about 15 more minutes. (See my note above on this technique.) Cool completely.

If you like a thick layer of filling, make a double batch of Easy Pastry Cream. (I made one recipe)

Using a 13x9-inch pan as a mold, place one layer of cooked puff pastry in the bottom of the pan. Pour hot pastry cream over it, and place second layer of cooked puff pastry on top. Refrigerate until set. When ready to serve, using the prescored marks as guides, cut into 9 pieces. Dust each piece with confectioners' sugar. Refrigerate leftovers. (I chilled my cream and spooned it on almost completely cooled pastries. I pulled the pastry out of the freezer and while it thawed, I cooked and chilled my cream -- kind of backwards but it works.)

Easy Pastry Cream

2 cups milk

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pinch salt

5 tablespoons cornstarch

6 large egg yolks

In a medium saucepan, bring milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, cornstarch and egg yolks to a boil, stirring constantly with a wire whisk. Reduce heat slightly and continue to boil 1 minute, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to get in the corners. Take the pan off the heat and plunge it into an ice-water bath or, if you have lumps, strain it through a sieve into a pan or heatproof bowl set in ice water.

In the Cookie Jar: Lemon Polish Sugar Cookies

This morning, when I realized I had not planned ahead for a treat for the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, I went hunting on the Internet for a recipe that was neither to taxing on my already taxed brain, or my partially empty cupboards. I thought I found the perfect recipe -- a sugar cookie -- but, at the moment when I already had my butter and sugar creaming, and went to the cupboard for my vanilla, I realized I had run out. What self-respecting baker runs out of vanilla? Well, none. I guess I lost my self-respect. Anyway, necessity is the mother of invention, right? So, my perfectly lovely Polish Sugar Cookies became perfectly lovely (maybe lovelier) Lemon Polish Sugar Cookies.

These are a crisp, light cookie (think lemon snickerdoodle), and they would be a perfect tea time treat, as well as a perfect companion to some lemon sherbet or vanilla ice cream for dessert. I think they would also be wonderful made with the vanilla extract, as the original recipe stated, so I'll hang on to this recipe for another day (and another Polish saint).

Lemon Polish Sugar Cookies

1 c. butter, softened
1 1/2 c. sugar
3 egg yolks
1/2 t. lemon extract (or 1 t. vanilla)
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream sugar and butter.
Add egg yolks and vanilla.
Add flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.
Mix until well combined -- dough will be stiff.
Pinch off dough and roll into 1-inch balls.
Roll in granulated sugar.
Place on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake until set, not brown, for 10-12 minutes.

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