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!

New salad dressing for napa cabbage

I'm in SERIOUS need of groceries. I hate looking in the kitchen and thinking "I don't want any of this junk!!" I'm completely out of sesame seeds, my favorite bouillon cubes that I use in everything, and walnuts which I eat like candy. It stinks. Anyway - being out of a bunch of stuff made me have to get creative today.

I chopped up some napa cabbage, what I had left of a couple green onions, chives & shredded some carrot. Mixed well.

Instead of the usual "crunchies" i just fried up plain ole ramen in sesame oil. I then fried up some Morningstar Farms chick'n starters in a little veggie oil (I also made up a second batch of them coated in some shake n bake & instant mashed potatoes YUM!) until browned. Stick on top of the napa cabbage mix.

Unforunately I don't have exact measurements for the dressing I used. I mixed a big fork full of almond butter with a squeeze of agave (less than more), the remaining tamari I had (maybe 2 tbsp, might use less next time), some water & a sprinkle or two of sesame oil in a shaker & apply liberally (OR NOT!) on the salad. All of the protein from the almond butter made this a really filling lunch! If I had added a tomato it would have been pretty well rounded, but I don't have any of those either!



I don't normally keep almond butter on hand, this was something my not-quite-mother-in-law gave me because I had at one point said that I had wanted to try it. Well I did and AB&J sandwhiches just weren't my thing so it sat in the fridge for a month before I came across THIS recipe and in the words of one of my favorite friends "HELLZ YEAH!". I also picked up a bottle of Rhubarb wine made by Mountain Valley - sweet white whine. I'm enjoying it with my salad. YUM!!

Food stuffs and laziness.

I don't know about you folk, but summertime for me - I'd rather be doing almost ANYTHING but cooking. Its hot but its also beautiful out - I want to be active, I want to be crafty I essentially want to be doing SOMETHING ELSE. So a big staple of my diet lately is 1) Napa Cabbage & ramen salad & 2) Rice with steamed veggies. Also anything I can drag fresh out of the garden.

The salad is really quite simple.
You chop the cabbage up into bite sized pieces, add some chopped green onions (and any other veggies you want - I sometimes add carrots, radishes, or tomatoes) set aside. I know I don't have any measurements for this - sorry you already know I'm not good with this. How much dressing will vary depending on how much salad you need. For approximately two-3 servings of dressing, I used about 1/4 cup apple cider, 3TBSP sesame oil, a good tablespoon or so of agave syrup and I mixed it. Pour on top of salad and top the whole thing off with a heaping handful of "CRUNCHIES!" Yums. You can also replace the napa with regular cabbage - it still tastes good, just not quite the same.

As for the rice & veggies. I make a big pot of rice about 3 times a month (sometimes weekly). So I tend to have either mahogany, basmati or brown rice on hand. I toss that into a bowl, throw on some veggies (often; mushrooms, zucchini, baby bok choy, and green onions) splash with water (or ume vinegar) and nuke it in the microwave. I then smother in sesame oil, ume vinegar & tamari or Bragg's liquid aminos - top with either the "Crunchies" as seen above OR just plain sesame seeds. Yum.