Pierogies!

While I wait for my sauerkraut to ferment (moved it to the garage where there's no A/C - that will speed it up), I made some pierogies!  I got the real deal - Polish Cookery - which was actually written in Polish initially and then translated to English.

Making pierogies was actually a New Years Resolution of mine to try to stay in-tune with my Polish heritage.

Whenever anyone in my family makes pierogies, the other family members beg her to make extra and send the pierogies home with them!  They also freeze very well.

Not much required for the dough.  Flour, egg, and a little
bit of water.  I had to kind of play with the egg/water ratio
to ensure an elasticy, play-dough-like consistency.

Step 1 - convince your significant other to make delicious
mashed potatoes

Saute onion in butter til lightly golden brown

Roll out your dough.  This is half of the dough.  This would
be considered a single batch.

Find a cup/container that will make circles the size you want.
You can reuse/reroll the dough to make more pierogies after.

After mixing potatoes with the sauteed/minced onion/butter
mixture, spoon a little into the center of each circle.

Add cheese!  I used sharp cheddar.

Press ends together.  I used a fork to make it cute.  This
reminded me of when I was a little kid making these out
of blue play-dough.  Every time I had play-dough I would
make pretend pierogies.

Demo of the fork method

Every pollock will tell you that you gotta make a double batch,
which is what I did.

Although it's not pictured, first you BOIL in salted water
until they float.  Most people would stop there.  However,
I like to saute in butter.  Gives it just the slightest crisp -
about a minute or two each side.  I also think it helps to bring
out the flavor of the filling.

 

They get just a tad golden brown.

And here is the finished product - complete with another
batch of sauteed onions (sauteed in butter, of course)!   If
you are going for authentic, ya gotta do it right!

This took about 2 hours and my feet and back were killing me by the time it was all done!  I ended up with approx. 34 pierogies.  I froze some, we ate some, and there are some leftovers in the fridge!  Yum yum!

Lacto-fermented sauerkraut

I, Polish girl, am trying my hand at making lacto-fermented sauerkraut. I got this recipe from Joanne who I think is brilliant. Recipe here: http://frugalhomeandhealth.blogspot.com/2012/03/sauerkraut-lacto-fermented.html

1st, I quartered & cored the cabbage and cut it into strips.

Then I pounded each quarter with 1.5 t. salt for approx
5 minutes til it reduces & gets juicy. I added more salt for
each batch I pounded. I used the handle of a knife
sharpener to pound with.

I added the cabbage to a mason jar.

I pushed down. This is cabbage juice resulting from the
process, no water added. 

 

I cut a margarine lid to size and put it on top of the cabbage. I
filled a small glass jar with water, used it as a weight to keep
all of the cabbage under the cabbage juice so it
doesn't rot. Now I will wait several days until it gets very
bubbly. (Approx 5-6 days). Then I'll refrigerate. Eat
"raw" - do not cook - the beneficial bacteria is
very good for your gut! If you cook the kraut it will
kill the beneficial bacteria.

This was very fun and pretty exciting! It makes me feel more connected with my Polish heritage. 

Joanne's other recipes:

http://frugalhomeandhealth.blogspot.com/p/recipes.html

I think I'll try the homemade butter next, since we get raw milk directly from a farm every week. All you really need for that is some salt, a cake mixer, and some time. You also get buttermilk out of the process.

Upside-down tomato / eggplant

Morning glory blooms

Being sick has its advantages.  Wait, what?  It does?  Well, in this case, I couldn't sleep and on several days I was up at 3:30 or 4 am.  AND I could not go back to sleep.  So when the sun came up, I was able to go outside and see the morning glories fully open.  

Usually I can't do that because by the time I usually get up (like 8:30-ish), they are already halfway closed again to protect themselves from the Florida sun.

Trellis - driveway bed

Trellis - front door bed

Trellis - driveway bed

And here are some pics taken the following week:

LOVE the purple!

Outdoor vegetables

First eggplant flower.  Isn't it lovely?

The eggplant plant!  It had a big growth spurt after some
hard rain

Eggplant

Found another little bunch of tomatoes on the upside-down
tomato plant!

DIY raised bed!

We built a raised bed this weekend!  By buying our own materials, we were able to do it for approx $20.  Boyfriend did the building, and I did the planting!

We used topsoil with peat moss, organic garden soil, and manure.

We dug up the sand underneath and thoroughly wet it, then we mixed all the soils and thoroughly wet them also.

Boyfriend also made the trellis himself.  He has mad skillz.

I raised the seeds inside under lights, then transplanted.  About 90% of the plants in this bed were grown by me from seed.

You may be wondering, why marigolds?  They are a natural form of pest control.

On the left wall is sweet onions, along the back is cantaloupe and eggplant, in the middle a purple cherokee heirloom tomato and a jalapeno pepper.  Along the right is summer squash.  And finally, up front here we have okra and corn.  Yep, corn!  We'll see what happens with that and how crazy high it gets!  (I'm a little worried about our fat squirrels out back though - I'm sure they'd love some corn.. :)

Plants grown indoors from seed.  The 3 large plants, sweet potatoes, onions, and marigolds were store bought.

Marigolds for natural pest control - in the fenced area is a little sweet potato patch (1 of 2).  Sweet potatoes like poor, sandy soil.  We threw 2 into the raised bed for an experiment, though.  To the right are 2 pots with the extra squash & cantaloupe seedlings I grew.  If anything should die in the bed, these sprouts will replace those plants.

Mini sweet potato patch, pots with squash and cantaloupe
seedlings. 

Sweet potatoes

An additional sweet potato patch in the back of the yard