Peroghies,Pyrohy, dumplings by any other name!

 My Mom's dumplings have become legendary as everyone remembers how tender, pump and delicious they were.  As a young kid, I could never understand why anyone would want to eat potatoes and dough!  Even the homemade cottage cheese that was part of the filling with the potatoes was not to my liking! Pyrohy were a common dish especially at holidays and during lent.

Everyone in my family especially my Irish husband loved them the first time he tasted them at my Mom's house!   My Mom kept my deep freeze filled with these dumplings! Until that one Christmas, I no longer had any and mixed up my first dough!  Yes, only water, flour and oil are the three ingredients in the basic recipe! I realized I was in trouble.. I had never really paid any attention to how they was made.  My aunties and Mom's friend came to my rescue! However, everyone had different recipes from adding an egg, adding sour cream, adding Baking powder,  lukewarm to cold water, the list goes on!!

For a couple of years, my sister has been visiting in November and it become a pyrohy bake off using different dough recipes.. All the different recipes of dough seemed the same, difficult to roll out,  yet the results tasted the same!

This year after reading the article about Baba's Beauties from the Edmonton Journal and how the ladies had to adjust the basic recipe and going by feel, I decided to increase the amount of water used in the recipe and also to use hot water almost boiling water!  To my surprise the dough was tender, especially easy to roll out and work with! Although the dough was a little sticky, a little flour corrects this.

 Here is my Mom's basic recipe, that has been tweaked.

6 cups of flour
2 3/4 cups lukewarm water
pinch of salt
1/4 cup of oil

 I increased the amount of water to 3 cups and used very hot water. I also increased the amount of oil to 1/3 cups

In my head as I rolled out the dough, I kept hearing "By George I think she's got! from my Fair Lady in "The rain in Spain"

Yesterday I ran into an elderly woman who was widowed last summer and was telling me of her preparation for the traditional Christmas Eve Dinner and how difficult it will be without her husband.  I mentioned to her that I had finally had success in making the dough for the dumplings.. Without even batting an eye, she asked if I had used hot water! Interesting!

Home made Pasta Noodles

Searching for the perfect pasta recipe! One that that is tasty and  tender and doesn't take forever to cook! Delicious homemade noodles are a favourite memory of my childhood.. My husband follows recipes precisely as he did with Michael Smith's homemade pasta recipe

Ingredients

• 4 cups flour 
• 6 eggs
• 1 teaspoon olive oil

After many tries, we found the dough was too difficult to work as not very soft or tender to roll out or work through the pasta maker.. The noodles took for ever to cook and certainly with 6 eggs in the mix, not the tastiest!

Michael Smith did comment "Cook until the pasta floats to the top, 3 minutes or so. It should be al dente, cooked through but still chewy." 

I grew up with home made noodles. Homemade chicken soup with tender, plump, yellowish, perfectly hand cut noodles floating on the broth with a garnish of green parsley was my favourite!

I never saw my mom making noodles as she made this during the day when we where in school.. We would come home from school to see sheets of thinly rolled out dough draped on clean tablecloths hanging on doors to dry. The next day we would see the dining room table covered with floured cut noodles on a tablecloth to dry!

Sadly, when I used up the last package  of my Mom's homemade noodles frozen in my deep freeze, I cried! I never did have her recipe, just knew when there was an extra supply of eggs from the farm, she made  noodles to freeze!

I was determined to make great tasting noodles.. 

I convinced my husband to use my Aunt Mary's recipe 
5 extra large eggs
5 cup flour
1 cup hot water 

 

The dough was easy to handle, making a soft ball! It rolled out well in the pasta maker, but bunched and did not go through the blades to make noodles. Since everyone was hungry, some of the dough was rolled out, cut into strips, dusted with flour and then cut into small julienne pieces.  The rest of the dough was refrigerated. The noodles cooked quickly in the boiling water.

The youngest food critic loved the noodles with a little butter and parmesan cheese!

The birthday boy said "It was Freaking awesome!"

The next day, the rest of the dough was placed through the pasta maker armed with tons of flour which was used to dust the sheets of pasta and flour was sprinkled on the blades to make Fettucini!

Success with extra dusting of flour!

Last picture is nostalgic with memories of mom making noodles!

Pickled Grapes

My brother had an abundance of Concord grapes at the front of his house this fall.  I made him concentrate  juice for jelly from some of the grapes.  I decided to pickle a few bunches of the grapes and leave them on the stems.  

 I used the recipe with ginger and jalapeño peppers. The jalapeño peppers were from his garden. I picked up what I thought was crystallized ginger, only to find out it was pineapple!  

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 10 whole cloves
• 1/4 cup crystallized ginger
• 2 medium jalapenos, diced
• 1 bunch green or red seedless grapes, 

Having seen the above pictures, my daughter requested some jars to give as Christmas gifts for her friends, I used the following recipe with peppercorns and to one of the jars included crystallized ginger.. I also added 2 dried chilies to the brine! I also left the grapes on the stems and it was difficult to pack tightly, therefore didn't to mix up 2 batches of brine

1 pound red or black grapes, preferably seedless
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 (2 1/2-inch) cinnamon stick, cut in half
1/4 teaspoon salt

Blueberry Scones

My husband hates using Blueberries in his scones as they get messy when he rolls the dough out!  I must say that my husband does the best scones ever. He likes doing the cheese and ham scones, but I prefer  blueberry!

Garlic and Chile Flavoured Cauliflower

What to do with a head of cauliflower, when you don't want to dump tons of calories i.e.  cheese sauce? 

I used an Indian recipe from Indian, cooking school.  The recipe suggested that you blanch the cauliflower first then add to a hot skillet that had spices heated to open up the flavours, cumin seeds, mustard seeds , chillies and garlic!   Skipping the step of blanching the cauiflower, I popped the small pieces into the hot pan.  After sautéing the cauliflower, the spices were starting to burn, and the cauliflower was not cooking so I microwaved the cauliflowers!  Wondering how authentic the recipe was, I googled it and found that  it can be done, just as I had done, but the most interesting recipe was to grill or bake the cauliflower to give a more golden look!  Which I did! 

Escargot stuffed mushroom caps

Last night I was asked to bring an appetizer for a lasagne supper.. Thinking Italian, I hate running out for stuff at the last minute and realized I had makings for Escargot stuffed mushroom caps.. Although it was snowing for the first time this year, I still had fresh parsley in the garden which I gathered for the dish!The last time I had made this dish, I had the mushroom caps stuffed.  

This time I thought I would fill the Escargot dish with escargot, chopped up mushroom stems that were removed from the mushroom cap, drizzle a mixture of Olive Oil and butter with garlic and tons of parsley! The mushroom caps were popped on top.This was baked for 15 minutes! Grated mozzarella cheese was added at the end.

The dish was broiled to a golden top before serving. Everyone enjoyed sopping up the garlicky butter with slices of french bread!   The Mushroom caps  did look wrinkled! Next time I think I will sauté the caps in butter before assembling the dish

Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving Day!

I came across Mom's recipes in her Scribbler of Recipes that was once my science scribbler for high school!

Thanksgiving dinner always ended with her beautifully baked pumpkin pie in a homemade golden flaky pastry.  The pies were velvety and spicy accompanied by a scoop of vanilla ice cream!  

Mom always used evaporated milk for the custard and her own mix of spices- cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg along with brown sugar. 

Everyone loved the pumpkin pie and there was always remove for a second piece. Only one of my son's did not enjoy pumpkin,   although every year he would try!

This year, I followed the recipe but used the whole can of pumpkin as well as the whole can of evaporated milk.

I used 1 T cinnamon, and the rest was 1 tsp of allspice, nutmeg, ginger and cloves! Although the recipe didn't call for Vanilla, I did add this and I think my Mom did too.. Mom reduced the amount of sugar  indicated in the recipe.

Next time, I'll bake the maple leaves and free styled leaves less, only about 15 minutes.  I had also baked them separate as uncooked pastry would sink to the bottom

Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe with Pecan Praline sauce. Not to sure if my family would settle for this with pumpkin pie without whipped cream or ice cream