Perogies!

Yum! Perogies!! So, I adapted THIS recipe to make the above awesome perogies.

The first thing I adapted was the dough. It claims that 3 tablespoons was sufficient to make 2 cups of flour & 4 TBSP (1/4 cup) of shortening into a doughy ball. Well, its not. Maybe that's because it is insanely dry here... I'm not sure. I probably slightly less than half a cup of water, maybe more. I just kept adding TBSP by TBSP until it was a doughy ball.



The other way I adapted the recipe was the filling. I fried up finely diced onions and a TINY green pepper that a deer pulled off my pepper plant, but failed to eat from my garden (literally, it was like, less than two inches long by one inch wide) & mixed them in with the potatoes. I also added vegan sour cream. YUM! In another batch I used fake pepperoni and in yet another I tried to mix in some pureed lentil soup. I liked that one least of all, but they were all tasty. I also fried up some napa cabbage, onion & zucchini to eat with them. <3

I also picked a ripe pumpkin out of my garden only to find an animal half ate a green one - so I picked that one too... hopefully going to use it in soup.



Edited to add: I had to make TWO batches of the dough from the recipe to use up MOST of the potato mix. I suspect 1)The measurements - 2 cup potatoes, 2 cup water is wrong, on my box it was not equal parts AND 2) I think if you're only making one batch of dough, then you can half it. I got about 14 rounds out of one batch of dough (15 on my second) so... yeah. However - maybe that was due to the size cookie cutter I had (I used my black & decker mini food processor) - however I still think 2 cups of potatoes was WAYYYYYYYYYYY too much!

Fail! Oh well. :)

Well, a failed attempt at a macaroni & cheese dish with a sweet potato base failed a couple days ago. My attempt at resurrecting it by making it into a "hamburger helper" type meal made it just barely edible - but given two options, this and something you've eaten every day for the past 2 weeks - you'll probably choose whatever it was that you'd eaten every day for the past two weeks. Seriously. The recipe was just not as good as it claimed to be.

I froze a big portion of it for "I have no time to make food" type meals. It may end up staying in the freezer until we move, at which time it will end up in the trash bin.

Since then... I've been feeling little to no motivation to cook. However the "big day" is coming up: Ie: grocery shopping day. I got a coupon in the mail, $6 off a $60 purchase at my local grocery. He and I have been trying to be frugal about our groceries - so we're trying to spend a max of $35/wk. SO this means I need to shop for TWO weeks worth of food. Its a trying task! I can't plan meals ONE week ahead more or less TWO. Also - I eat a ton of fresh veggies... which I can't purchase ahead that far. So i'll have to plan around that too, perhaps buying frozen or freezing fresh. With the money I save I will be able to buy a couple things next week, but less than $10 worth.

I had hoped to make a big meal today, Cabbage rolls, stuffed acorn squash, stuffing and banana bread... but was unmotivated. Plus Michael came home and needed the computer so I didn't have access to the recipes I pulled up. I hope to go ahead with the meal tomorrow, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

Tonight, I followed a recipe from a book that I borrowed from the library The Starving Students' Vegetarian Cookbook - Fried Spaghetti. It basically called for spaghetti, onion, garlic, some herbs, and tomato paste. I was relatively disappointed by it, but also intrigued at the concept - added a little Newman's Own spaghetti Sauce and it was great :) Sockarooni is currently my absolute favorite spaghetti sauce evar. I will probably try tweaking this recipe in the future, as it seems like there could be flexibility with it.

Edit to add: I FORGOT! I tried to make food again last night using this Spicy Eggplant recipe... and it was not popular with the boy who has texture issues. Apparently "mushy" is not palatable. I could have done without the eggplant. I thought the spicy sauce was AWESOME and will make it again - I did have to adjust with the addition of cornstarch to thicken it as it was really really watery. I poured it all over collards, brown rice and green beans for a tasty side dish *heart*