recipe: pierogies with kielbasa & leeks

sunday. had a pierogi craving & kielbasa in the freezer that needed cooking. i couldn't find a just-right recipe so did a fusion of a few (purposefully not posting the full recipe i ended up with...will be easier to pop the links below). it started swimmingly, then took a few bad turns. a quick play-by-play:

for the pierogie dumpling itself, i used an allrecipes recipe: Pierogies (Polish Dumplings). as far as the ingredient list, i followed the recipe verbatim except i added about 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese when combining the sauerkraut & potatoe fillings. for the mashed potatoes in the ingredient list, i used my fav recipe, Garlic Red Mashed Potatoes (made a full recipe so there were leftovers... yum).

if you're about 2 drinks into the prep process by the time you finish the fillings, be careful when you stir. i got hit with a triple whoops:

overall, everything was going fantastic (and i was getting SO excited for dinner) up until about step 4 of the recipe. i rolled out the dough onto an extremely floured surface, BUT, after rolling it, it warmed up and after spreading stuck like hell to the countertops. so my picture perfect circles* became deformed, holy (full of holes, not biblical) horrors.

*see, picture perfect circles:

fear sets in. it's so bad i'm ready to throw in the towelolie. cursing like a Polack on a math test, my sister assumes the beverages i've consumed are exaggerating the situation. after realizing the actual dumpling horror show among us, this now has become a 2-woman job as she helps pry and reassemble these little effers. step 5 of the recipe is out the door as there is no way we can boil these without them exploding everywhere they are so full of holes and/or patchwork dough. i decide to bake them, 350 degrees for 15 minutes (i think we end up with about 36. that deserves another drink). future lesson: chill dough first, or roll on a silpat or taped-down parchment paper.

while they bake, i slice and saute a 16 oz kielbasa over medium heat, adding about 1.5-2 cups of leeks for about the last 3-4 minutes. after the kielbasa/leeks are done cooking, pour mixture to a plate, reserving grease, and sautee the baked pierogies in the kielbasa grease until they are golden on each side - about 2-3 minutes per side (you may need to add additional oil (i used olive) if you run out of grease - these baked suckers are very absorbent).

i served these with a side of the mustard sauce from the Food Network's Grilled Pierogies and Kielbasa, making quadruple the sauce since i made such a massive batch of everything else. the recipe is basically dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, and olive oil. in a taste test, it's tooo vinegary. i cook it on the stove to reduce it a bit, add a few teaspoons of honey to dull it down, add milk (1/4 cup), and then even add mayo (3 tbsp). final product is good, just too intense to pour over the everything - perfect as a side dip.

in the end, this literally took me about 4 hours, but if i wasn't drinking, dancing around the kitchen, and making crude gestures with the kielbasa, it probably would have been about a 2 hour process (sorry for the rushed last photo - we needed to EAT by the time this ordeal was over).

final meal was very tasty, very fun. the texture of the pierogies themselves had more of a biscuit-like crust than pasta-like as you'd get from boiling them, but still good. i'd give it a 5.5 rating *****~... really yum, but probably stacking homemade goodness factor vs. time, it's not worth that long.