Pierogies and Tennyson

Hello friendly readers! My name is Emily and I love to cook and also to read because I am an English major with a beautiful kitchen. I did not know I loved to cook until getting a beautiful kitchen, but now that I do, I am way enthusiastic about it! I make dinner once a week for my roommates, so you, as a faithful reader, can probably count on weekly updates (plus extra ones if I bake something fun, which I tend to do).

A little about me! I live in San Jose with 5 wonderful roommates and friends named Jessica, Bridget, Eve, Christine, and Robbie. I would show you all a picture of them, but there is not a picture of us all together! It is All Wrong and hopefully we will fix this Horrible Situation during our Valentine's Day Dinner Party in Monday night. Man, I hope! Anyway, we are all very happy and enjoy eating so much. So much. My favorite thing to eat is cake and so this is also my favorite thing to bake. Also these Godiva chocolates that my mom sent me for Valentine's Day that are sitting right here by my laptop. Just in case, you know, you wanted to buy my a present, being the faithful reader you are. I dunno. Maybe.

I go to SJSU and I play the accordion (or I just recently started) and I like to bicycle as well and also I am maybe starting a Muggle Quidditch team at school and I tutor 2nd grade. There, I think that is everything that is cool about me.

Anyway, to the food!

Tonight, I made pierogies! I grew up in Cleveland and pierogis are are big there in general and with my distantly Slavic ancestors specifically. Basically, they are a filling of potatoes, cheddar cheese, and sauteed onions all mashed together and wrapped in dough that is then boiled for a few minutes and fried. The extra beautiful part is that you can do everything but frying and then refrigerate them to fry later. They'll be ready within minutes! Yes, minutes!

This is the yummy filling! It consists of two mashed potatoes, half of a chopped onion, and 8oz. cheddar cheese. (Apparently you can make dessert pierogies with prunes, but I cannot attest to their awesomeness cause that is too icky for me. Maybe dates. I dunno, haven't tried).

These are the pierogies with a little filling in each one and the edges of the dough carefully sealed. That way when I boil them, they

don't get make the water all murky and awful with filling (they do a little bit anyhow, but if you aren't careful, it'll be way gross and you will also be feeding people empty dough shells that have been fried). In case you are interested, the dough is 2 1/2 cup flour, a dash of salt, 1/2 cup of sour cream, and 1/4 cup butter. Add a little water too if it's too dry because closing them tightly is very very important.

Next, I boiled them for a few minutes (they float to the top when they're ready to get out). I was really tired by then because the process takes a little bit (1 hour and a half-ish). So I went and watched excessive TLC with my dear roommate Jessica and went to bed. Then, tonight, I fried them with more onions and everyone enjoyed! (This made like 35 smallish pierogies.)

I don't think I will post extensively about what I am reading every time because I am often reading the same old classics again and again as an English major and it is maybe not so interesting. But hopefully this blog will get me to make time for the extra reading that I usually don't have time for so that I sound more interesting and well-rounded.

This week in Victorian Literature we read Tennyson's poem "Ulysses". I know, way original, right? I think I will write a response to the poem from Penelope's point of view later this week and then put that up here cause that might be fun and promising you will encourage me to actually do it.

Okay that's all! Goodbye new friends!