Lack of Snow & Perogies

I notice from the news and weather reports that there are storms all over the Continent.  Of course it always snows back East but here on the Coast snow is a rarity, except that for the past few days it has been dumping snow just a few miles south of us.   So far we have escaped unharmed.  We have had record low temperatures.   Yesterday it went down to minus -8.8°c which is the lowest recorded temperature since 1939.  We are not used to the cold so I have to gloat before it starts snowing later tonight

    Yesterday afternoon  (Saturday)

Yesterday afternoon it was nearly shirt sleeve weather and I could feel the warmth of the sun.  Not so warm in the shade though but it felt like early spring with temperatures just above freezing

    Today  (Sunday)

I just had to gloat at our good fortune of being in a snow free place, at least until the forecast storm arrives later tonight.  

Saturday found me experimenting in the kitchen and getting a bit frustrated with making dough (not the $$ kind)

Nothing fancy, 2-1/2 cups of flour, one egg, dash of salt and a cup of warm water, kneeding, blending rolling and then using a beverage glass to roll it out and other glass to cut out the circles.  The dough was so sticky and I had to keep dusting with flour to keep it from being stuck together

In the meantime I was boiling 2-1/2 lbs of russet potatoes until soft, then mashed .  I blended one onion in my Cuisinart and cooked them in butter until they were reduced and then added them to my mashed potatoes.  After they were mixed, I then added another 1/2 lb of Cheddar cheese into the mixture which turned the mashed potatoes to a nice yellow colour.  It was smooth and very tasty, if I don't say so myself

I put a dob of mashed potato mixture into the centre of my cut out dough circles and then pinched them together to form my  perogies.    I love potato cheddar & onion perogies

It took me a while to get a production line moving.   I took the scraps, rerolled to recycle the dough

If you ask me the hardest part about this whole process is making the dough.   The mashed potato mixture is a "piece of cake"

To minimize "sticking" I had to be generous with the flour and I put the finished ones on separate plates so they wouldn't all stick together

After I cleaned everything up it was time to cook them.  I like them with bacon bits and tons of sour cream.  You boil the perogies until they float, and then keep them in there for a few minutes longer.

I cut my bacon strips into small pieces, put them in a frying pan and tried to carmelize them and I was generous with the sour cream.   That bowl of congee was also cooking all day in our slow cooker.  It's sort of like a very thick rice soup with pork.   Another variation is to use fish instead of meat

MMmmmm,  potato, onion and cheddar Perogies . . .  You should try some . . .

There are many sales promotions offered in the USA but NEVER offered in Canada.  I see the deals all the time but we cannot participate as we do not have a USA address to send rebate cheques/checks.   Canon USA has been promoting camera/printer combos since before Christmas and then put on another promotion whereby you can buy a Camera and Printer, get a $400. rebate when you send in the UPC code from the Box.  Many buyers buy the combo and then sell the printer for a nominal cost.  I bought my last printer this way several years ago.   Basically they get the printer FREE and then sell it to further reduce their camera cost.  

I noticed a few new factory sealed printers for sale on our local Craigslist and was humming and hawwing talking myself into and out of buying this printer, but in the end I decided to buy it as it would enable me to print Black and White,  has WiFi built-in and is also an Air-print printer for iOS

Here it is, all 54 lbs of solid mechanical perfection.  I struggled to have it fit into my meagre trunk and it nearly killed me as I had to carry it from the street into the house.

It also came with a 50 pack of 13" x 19" photo paper

I kept rationalizing to myself that for the price of the paper and the ink cartridges alone this would mean that this printer was Free.   I have read only great reviews for this printer as being simply the best dye printer on the market.  It has 3 black cartridges so it can print "real" black & white using the Epson B&W print driver

I have also been busy learning Windows 8.1    It's a bit different than what I am used to but my new computer also has touch screen so it is like having a really big iPad.

I've still got enough Potato, onion & cheddar perogies left for another meal.   Maybe tomorrow, and it's something I am looking forward to.  Did I mention that I love perogies ?