Survival Sunday 7

Guys.

It's hot.

It's so hot here. And humid.

But the S/O and I were craving some pierogi last week (which was actually a pretty nice week, even if it was still humid af).

So here we are, me sitting in a hot, humid room, my hair refusing to dry, running out of water, and about to teach you about the joys of making pierogi and kielbasa.

I should mention also that I've only had a cup of coffee today (my usual nonsense, not actually coffee). This is going to be hard, hungry work.

It's not actually that hard, guys, I'm being a butt.

So: Pierogi & Kielbasa for people who don't cook.

Let's get our ingredients together:

• 1 package kielbasa or summer sausage (any sausage you like works, guys, seriously)
• 1 box frozen pierogi (I'm not going to make pierogi by hand. I am fail at pasta)
• Salt & pepper to taste
• cooking spray
• onion (optional - we didn't have one)
• cooking oil (if you have the onion. You won't need it otherwise)

Whatever floats your boat as far as pierogies go. These were cheap and good.

We, uh, we chucked the packaging before I started taking photos. Oops.

Now that you have your ingredients together, get a pot and put some water in it. You will need enough to cover however many pierogi you're making but not so much that it'll boil over when you're cooking them. Eyeball it - you can always add or remove water with a ladle if necessary. Also, don't put the 'rogis in yet! They need to stay frozen if you're boiling them like I did.

You set that water up to start boiling, and then you get your pan out.

Spray your pan to keep your sausage from sticking, then set it down but don't turn it on yet! It's time to prepare your kielbasa (or whatever. Veggie sausage would be delicious, too, trust me).

Gentlemen. Clench.

To prepare the sausage, find where it curves inward like a banana. Cut a series of slices along that side so that it can relax in the pan - don't go all the way through! You only want to go 25% to 50% of the way through the sausage.

When your kielbasa are slitted, check your water. You want to keep an eye on that at all times, anyway, but this is a good time to check.

If you're using onion, chop it into bits you find tasty-looking, then add oil to your pan and cook the onions. Cooking the onions and sausage together gets the onions sausagey and the sausage oniony and that's a good thing. Unfortunately, we had no onion, so I cannot show you how bomb that really is! I find that starting the kielbasa before the pierogi makes the kielbasa much crispier on the outside and hotter on the inside. Hot sausage is good sausage.

You want to keep your heat on the lower end with the sausage. Medium is your friend. We're warming and crisping these guys, not burning them!

They will not look that appetizing at first!

The longer they sit in the pan, the nicer they'll crisp.

The waiting will not be easy.

I should also mention that we cooked this meal on two separate nights.

So if things look weird in some of the photos, that's why.

When your water boils, add your pierogi and watch them. They don't have to reboil. You're trying to get them hot all the way through, so obey the package. Mrs. T wants you to have good pierogi. Listen to her.

I love pierogi so much!

They're amazing pasta pockets full of potato and cheese. What could be better?

When both the pierogi and kielbasa look done to you (and really, guys, everything's basically pre-cooked. This is a warming-up-dinner, to be honest) take them off the heat and plate them. Getting the pierogi out is the hard part - they're squishy and uncooperative. I use a slotted spoon most of the time, but we were being lazy and just used tongs :)

Don't use tongs. They take forever and it's like trying to lift jellyfish with oiled chopsticks...

Okay - now eat! Traditionally, my family likes to eat pierogi & kielbasa naked, but I'm a mustard-lover, so grab some of that and get down with your spicy brown or honey self.

And now - a photostream of our meals over the course of two nights presented without further comment:

See that last pic? There's a lovely, lovely char on that little guy!

This meal is fantastic for if you just need to throw something together. It doesn't take too long, you only use two pans (and if you wanted to fry the pierogi, you'd only need one pan - unf), and it's amazing.

As for today's spice, let's talk about Cinnamon!

Cinnamon is made from ground up bark. It's the most vegan spice on earth that way (I kid - I love vegan food). It can be used in any kind of dish - spicy, savory, sweet... the list goes on!  One of my favorite ways to use it as a kid was to add some to a little sugar and dump it on toast with peanut butter. It's a great dessert/breakfast. Also, it's great in applesauce. And I sometimes use it in weirder recipes like chili.

Oh guys.

When I show you how to make chili, you're either going to love me to death

or you're gonna kill me :P

Go Enjoy Something!

FC