Happy Monday! I am feeling rested and rejuvenated after a successful weekend of errands, cooking, and relaxing! My boyfriend and I spent a lot of time this weekend in the grocery store and local ethnic markets picking out some foods for new recipes to enjoy while sipping wine and watching The Walking Dead, which we are totally addicted to! I know I feature primarily sweets on my blog but I do cook often and wanted to share the meal I made this weekend.
On Saturday afternoon we were perusing the shelves of Stop and Shop when I saw perogies and instantly got a craving. Louis is Polish and absolutely loves Polish food – golumpkis, sauerkraut, kopusta... Up until I met him, I had never had polish food, not even a perogi. It was all foreign to me, but I am not a big cabbage person, and that is a main ingredient in a lot of polish foods, but I did grow fond of Polish sausage and perogies!
So when I saw the perogies, my craving kicked in and Louis was totally on board. However, we left S&S and he decided to take me to Belvedere’s, a local Polish market in East Windsor, CT. I loved walking through the aisles and not being able to read anything—it reminded me of grocery shopping in Greece!!(which was the most INTERESTING experience of my life and warrants its own blog post someday!) The juices and spices and soups..and the Polish sausage! It all looked so good, we couldn’t even choose. We ended up walking out with two packages of perogies (one 3-cheese and one with potato and bacon), half a stick of sausage, some sesame crackers, a loaf of fresh rye bread and a package of flavor filled chocolates that smelled so heavily of liquor after opening the bag, I had to put them away instantly.. although they were tasty! Just strong.. after biting into one, Louis laughed at me and said “it’s candy made by Polish people, obviously it has vodka in it!”… I should have known!
Anyways, I created a delicious dish with the perogies, sausage, onions, bacon and sweet potato. I don’t really have a recipe… I am all about cutting up ingredients and throwing them in together with spices… measuring just takes up too much time, and this dish wasn’t going to be healthy from the start so who cares! It was the perfect Saturday night meal we needed, filled with warmth and carbohydrate goodness! Not every meal you eat needs to be healthy! You have to indulge! It’s all in moderation.
First I thawed the packages of perogies, and chopped the onions, bacon and sausage. I cubed the a sweet potato and a Yukon potato and threw that into boiling water with some garlic salt for 15 minutes, until they were tender but not cooked all the way through just yet. I drained and set aside.
I got my skillet hot and added ¼ stick of salted butter and melted that down before throwing in the perogies. I let them brown on each side for about 10 minutes, then removed from the skillet and put on a paper towel to rest and patted dry. Of course, a healthier route would be to boil them, but traditional perogies are browned in a skillet with onions and bacon!
I immediately added the bacon, onion and sausage to the skillet and let cook for about 15 minutes on medium heat, stirring frequently until onions and bacon was browned, and the sausage turned a darker pink. I added spices at this stage, such as cracked black pepper, garlic salt, a pinch of red pepper flake and some parsley.
I then added the potatoes, and let them brown while soaking up the flavors from the onions and sausage. Once everything was browned and cooked to my liking, I threw the perogies back in the pan to heat them back up. I topped it all with a thin layer of a three cheese blend, but any cheese works. The salt of the cheese and sausage marries with the sweetness of the perogi dough and sweet potato, and the combination is amazing!
I served the dish with a side of rye bread, and mhmm it was yummy!
It is definitely heavy on your stomach… You could lighten it up by adding veggies like sauerkraut or asparagus, or use less perogis, but it is rare to eat this food so I say if you’re going to make it, really go for it! It will definitely hold my craving over for a while!
We hope to travel to Poland in the next few years and really try an authentic Polish spread!
-Elena
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