Homemade Perogies

Perogies, Pyrogies...however its spelled, are by far one of the best comfort foods, and so much better homemade. When you can't get to an all you can eat Perogie dinner, here are some easy instructions on how to make them at home.

Perogies are a combination of three ingredients a lot of people have on hand:
cheese, potatoes and onions

Now I know what you are thinking, perogies must be hard to make...and I challenge you to try them, because they are easier than I ever thought.

Dough:
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup water (approx.)
4 tsp vegetable oil

Whisk flour with salt. In separate bowl, beat together the egg, water and oil, stir this into the flour mixture to make soft, not sticky dough that forms a ball. Add more water if you need to, but make sure the dough doesn't get sticky!!
Turn it out onto floured surface, knead 10 times or just until smooth. Halve the dough; cover with plastic wrap or damp tea towel and let rest while you make the filling.

Filling:
I personally prefer your traditional potatoe and cheese filling. Basically cook some chopped onion, mix it with about a cup of cold mashed potatoes and 3/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, some salt and pepper. Be creative, cook some mushrooms and add them, put in different kinds of cheese, this is the part where you can make them your own!


Now the fun part:

ASSEMBLY:
I have tried different things when assembling perogies, and I will give you my thoughts on them. The basics of rolling the dough out stay the same, roll it out to about 1/16 of an inch thickness, you do not want it to be too thick, then the perogies are all dough. Make sure to keep the dough you are not rolling out covered, so it doesn't dry out.

Now, the recipe I first used called for a 3-inch round cookie cutter, alas, I did not have one. So I used that which I use all the time, a wine glass. Wine glasses are perfect to cut dough into circular shapes, and if you are like me, you have several different sizes to choose from.

Now I have also tried one of the fancy perogie contraptions, a gift from my sister (thanks for indulging my cooking family!!), and I had a bit of trouble with it. I think the problem was that I did not use enough dough to cover the entire contraption. So needless to say, it did work, but in the process I found I think I prefer using my hands a little more, but that's just me.

So once you have decided what you are going to use, place 1 small spoonful of filling in the centre of each round, with water, moisten the edge,fold it in half, pinch the edges together and voila!

Place on tea towel-lined rimmed baking sheets; cover with damp tea towel to prevent drying out.

These freeze wonderfully! Freeze them first on baking sheets, then pack in freezer bags for up to one month. Cook from frozen.