Sounds strange, right? But if pumpkin ravioli are so divine, why not pumpkin pierogi? Besides, I've had acorn squash pierogi that were just dandy. Here's how it turned out:
If you've never had pierogi before (I had never even heard of them before I met my husband whose family is Polish), they are small bits of dough wrapped around a mixture of mashed potatoes and farmer's cheese (or cottage cheese if farmer's cheese is MIA). They are boiled until they rise to the surface of the water and then for three additional minutes. In our house, they're typically served with a smidge of butter or Greek seasoning if you're feeling festive. The only problem is that they are carbo-riffic, and some fuddy-dud part of my brain thinks that a starch within a starch is a bad idea.
My fabulous husband made an enormous batch of potato and cheese pierogies and a second enormous batch of pumpkin. For the potato pierogies, he followed the family recipe, and for the pumpkin, he made the dough the same way and then kind of ad-libbed the filling.
Here's what he did (as far as I know):
Pierogi Dough
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
a little salt
1/3 cup water (more if needed -- humidity is a big factor in this recipe)
Mix together flour and egg. Add enough water to make an elastic dough. Be careful not to over-knead the dough. Roll out dough to approximately 1/8 inch thick. Use a round biscuit cutter to cut out dough.
Pumpkin Filling
butter
1 can pumpkin
8 oz. farmer's cheese
spices to taste:
nutmeg
ginger
cinnamon
vanilla
Melt butter and mix with pumpkin. Add farmer's cheese and stir to incorporate. Filling should be the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add spices to taste.
Potato Filling
3 large russet potatoes, boiled
8 oz. farmer's cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Mash potatoes and mix in farmer's cheese until the consistency of thick mashed potatoes. (Next time, I want to add chopped green onion to this mix.)
All Pierogi:
Cover a cookie sheet in wax paper. Spoon filling into circle of dough. Fold dough in half over filling and pinch edges together to seal in filling. Place pierogies on cookie sheet. Put cookie sheet in freezer. Make sure it's flat so the pierogies don't fall off. Leave the cookie sheet in the freezer for several hours, allowing them to dry out so they won't stick together. Store pierogies in freezer bags until ready to eat.
When you are ready to have some pierogies, place desired pierogies in gently boiling water. Boil them until they begin to float, and then boil them for three more minutes.
You can serve the pierogi with some kind of sauce (see link earlier), with butter, with sour cream, or with a little Greek seasoning.
Assessment:
The cheese gave the pumpkin pierogies a very bitter aftertaste. I wouldn't make them with cheese again. I'd follow the recipe in the link above and use cream and some kind of thickener, or just do plain pumpkin and butter. I think the real mistake here was to try to turn pumpkin into something savory. I'm not sure if I like pumpkin as anything other than a sweet.
Still, it is a good feeling to be having a vegetable wrapped in starch instead of a starch in a starch. And once you get used to the bitter taste, it's pretty tasty.
Funny story with the potato pierogies (which tasted PHENOMENAL): we didn't let the potato pierogies dry out enough in the freezer and went ahead and threw them in a freezer bag. When we went to get pierogies out of the bag a few days later, all of the potato pierogies had congealed together, so we boiled the whole enormous lump (about the size of a pot roast) and feasted on starchy starch starches. Yum! (seriously, these were some perfect pierogies before they cemented together) Upside: neither one of us is craving carbs anywhere near as much. For now. :-)
P.S. The chicken in the picture above was AMAZING. We followed the recipe for Chicken Wings Pacifica on Allrecipes.com with some extra spices: red hot pepper, garlic, dried minced onion, and ginger.
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