Polish Tradition!

Welcome back to MSU! Hope everyone had a great holiday and new years.  I spent my Christmas down in Dallas because my Aunt and Uncle live down there, as well as my sister who is a fellow Spartan.  The holidays are often spent carrying out traditions that have been past down from years to years.  My family is Polish and we follow a very Polish Christmas schedule.  We are the typical loud, crazy, polish family so things are never boring around the holidays for us.  One of the traditions we follow is making pierogi’s and borsht on Christmas Eve.  It was actually pretty funny because this year the most difficult part was making the dough (which is basically the only part cause the filling is farmers cheese).  My Uncle made the first batch, and instead of putting in 1 teaspoon of salt there was a slight confusion and he added 1½ tablespoons of salt.  Our dough literally tasted like the sea! Round two was my turn and my dough was powder and this is when we realized there was a problem with the recipe.  We then turned to the never failing Martha Stewart and used her recipe which ended in a success!

My mother made the borsht, which is basically a mushroom soup.  She luckily had no issues and it was simply delicious.  Here are the recipes if you want to have fun making some Polish food or if any of you fellow Polacks feel like getting in touch with your ancestor’s food!

Cheese filling

16 ounces of farmer’s cheese

1 egg yolk

Sugar to taste

Crumble or shred the farmer cheese and then add egg and sugar

Dough- makes roughly 60

1 egg

2 tbsp sour cream

1-cup milk

1-cup water

3 cups flour (which is more like 6; just add the flour till it’s a dough consistency)

Whisk egg then add sour cream and whisk these till smooth.  Add milk and water then whisk till combined then slowly add flour (this is when you will add the extra cups of flour till it becomes a dough consistency)

Let dough sit for 20 minuets.  Roll doll out on floured counter till 1/8 in of thickness.  Cut into coaster-sized circles then fill with about a tablespoon of filling.  Place in boiling water and remove with the pierogi floats, which should be within a minute.

When ready to serve fry in butter till slightly brown.  Serve with sour cream! Enjoy!