Okay, this week is going to get truncated by a day and there will be no week 99. I ran off to Mexico and I will post a separate blog on that adventure. Week 100 will also be truncated for the same reason, so I’ll do one blog for those two weeks with a little about how the family fared without me…
However, since I was getting ready to leave for almost two weeks, I decided to spend some time cooking things that could be frozen and provide easy meals for the family while I was gone. My husband kept reminding me that he could feed himself and the kid, but you know, I wanted it to be easier.
I made my first attempt at homemade pierogi. They were okay, but didn’t stay sealed. I baked them as I like doing with the frozen variety and they were still pretty good. I did a potato, bacon and cheese, a potato and cheddar, and a spinach and ricotta version. My husband said that last one was some kind of fusion as we’re pretty sure the Polish aren’t putting spinach and ricotta in them. The following day, I made another version which cannot even be called pierogi, but they were pretty good and reheat very well from the freezer.
Over the weekend I decided to make individual beef wellingtons from a recipe I found on NYT cooking. I varied it up a bit as I could not find filet mignons, so I used ribeye. On hindsight, this was not a good substitute. Or I just don’t like beef wellington. I would have liked the steak without the pastry. I also made a nice creamed spinach to go with it. I had found baby spinach on sale. I did a mushroom wellington using a portabella for the kid. She seems to really like it, but it was massive so there were definitely leftovers. I also did a spinach and cheese quiche. We love quiche and it gives the hubby something for breakfast.
I also decided it was bierok time. I ended up making about 30 of them. I somehow messed up the assembly and some of them ended up quite bready compared to the filling. That made me a bit sad, but they are getting eaten, so it was terribly off…just not exactly the way I wanted. I put both pork and beef in mine. First, we like pork. But also, pork is cheaper than beef and with the mixture, you still get enough fat that it soaks into the bread dough.
After all of that, we just ate leftovers and such the beginning of the following week and then I headed off to Mexico. I’ll get that blog posted this week as it was an amazing trip!
Foodie's Delimma 