Homemade potato and cheese perogies

Time to get into the spirit of the holiday season. For the first time since I moved out of my parents place, I get to have some of my family fly out to Saskatoon to spend the Christmas holiday with us.

With my boyfriend being Ukrainian, Christmas Day dinner includes perogies. So when my mother came to visit in early November we thought we would get a head start on the dinner and hand make our perogies from scratch and then stick them in the freezer till we need them. This cuts down many more hours in the kitchen on the day, we just need to stick them in a pot!

We got this recipe off of Allrecipes.com, my mum has used this same recipe for years.
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Ingredients : 

- 6 cups of all purpose flour
- 3 eggs
- A pinch of salt
​- 5 pounds of peeled potatoes
- 1 pound of cheese (we used cheddar, medium)
- onion salt to taste
​- Pepper to taste

- One egg mixed with water to act as an adhesive.

1. To start you will fill a large pot with water and a pinch of salt and bring to boil. Add the potatoes (cut into small cubes) and cook until tender.

2. Mix the Flour, Eggs and Salt together. Create a well in the middle and add a little bit of water to the middle of the mixture. Continue to mix the ingredients until it becomes stiff. 

3. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and set aside to allow for it to rise.

4. In the meantime, drain your potatoes, return them to large pot and add the cheese, salt, pepper and onion salt. Continue to mix until the cheese has melted with the potatoes.

5. Roll out the dough on the counter top sprinkled with flour. 

6. Taking either a circle cookie cutter or the open side of a drinking glass, begin making cuts.

7. Take the cut outs and place onto a large, flat cookie sheet and fill with the potato stuffing.

​8. Take the egg and water mixture and go around the edge of the perogie and fold it in half, pinching closed all the edges.  

9. Put the cookie sheet with the perogies into the freezer for a couple hours and once fully solid, transfer to a large ziploc. 

10. When ready to cook, take them out and place in a pot of boiling water till tender, fry after if desired. Dress them with bacon bits, fried onions and sour cream.

Allow yourself a good 2 - 3 hours making these, depending on if you're making them alone or have some help! This recipe made around 60 perogies with the dough and enough of the filling to make double.

I'm looking forward to being able to finally eat these with everyone at Christmas! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!