These Pancakes from Poland of their quite different and then American pancakes.  In fact then I first saw them I did not know what they were. American flat cakes use baking soda.  Polish pancakes are rather thin and flat without baking soda.  If you know what a French crepe is then this is what a Polish pancake looks like, you could even call these European pancakes.

Other then being rather thin, there are a few more differences in style.  For example, with Polish pancakes and instead of putting jam and jelly and syrup on top of them as we do in America, you actually wrap things like cheese or sweet gooey things inside.  Therefore, beside the name pancakes or the basic shape of a round disk they do not have much in common with the Pancakes in the USA.

I personally it like farmers cheese in Polish pancakes, however, if Polish pancakes have jam in them and they are on the table a usually eat them.

Sweet Polish Pancakes

You can also use sour milk and pieces of apple.

Polish pancakes for dessert

In Poland maple syrup is not common.  In fact, we actually have pine syrup here  not maple and it certainly does not go on pancakes,  it is more used as a medicine for people with colds.

What is our syrup replacement in Poland for pancakes, I would say honey.  Honey and Poland is everywhere.  I never knew there were so many different types of honey.  Each with a different taste and a different property.  If you want you can put honey on your Polish pancakes.

In restaurants people usually put powdered sugar or confectionery sugar on their polish pancakes.

Here is another interesting fact about Polish flat cakes, people in Poland usually eat them with their main meal in the afternoon, not for breakfast as an America.

Polish pancakes like sandwiches

Polish pancakes are actually very versatile.  The inside can be cabbage, meat, yellow cheese, or anything you can imagine.  They can function almost like tortilla.  What Polish people do is they might put meat and cheese inside the pancakes and then fried with bread crumbs and eggs and it makes croissant.

With the meat version you can also have with mushrooms. These are often served with borscht. Basically these are European sandwiches which are great to have when you’re on the go.

Pancakes from Poland

In summary:

• Polish pancakes are a main meal food.
• Polish pancakes function as a dessert food or a sandwich type food.

If you’re looking for recipes with Polish pancakes be the sweet type or the sandwich type I will put some on my recipe site. If you subscribe via rss you will see these recipes eventually.  I love cooking and live in Poland so this is a great chance to share with people Polish recipes.

However, I also I ask you to share, if you have any recipes you can share Polish pancakes or what ever please leave a comment as I would be very interested.

Mexican pierogies quick version

This is simple: dough, filling and cooking. Just three steps to prepare.

Mexican pierogies dough

• Flour
• Water
• Butter on your hands

Make the pierogi dough like normal.  Do not feel you need to bring this down to a science. I simply spread some flower out, I mix whole wheat and white flower but in this case you can add corn.

I butter my hands really good and add water and work the dough.  This is great exercises for your hands.

After I work it I use a rolling pin and flatten and use a glass to make perfect round pierogi dough covers.

Mexican pierogies filling

This is the signature part of the Mexican pierogies.

• Taco meat
• Corn
• Onions
• Salsa (on top)

Fry these up in a pan. I put sour cream on them.  Below is a better detailed real version rather than Mark’s lazy mans Mexican pierogi   the bachelor

Mexican pierogi

Real recipe for Mexican pierogies

Here is the longer version which is more detailed.

Dough for the dumplings ingredients:

200 g corn flour

250 g wheaten flour

150 g lard or I use butter, not margarine which I think is unhealthy

1 table spoon of baking powder

2 eggs

2-3 spoons of water or milk

vegetable oil for frying

Filling for the dumplings ingredients:

250 g boiled minced beef

2 onions

2-3 cloves of garlic

1 green pepper

7 black olives without pits

2 table spoons of raisins

2 hard boiled eggs

3 chili peppers

half a tea spoon of Oregano and marjoram

one tablespoon of  lard (butter or olive oil).

salt

Working the dough

Now I will tell you how to make the dough.  You must mix the flour and baking soda.

Next sift the flour, there in cut the butter or lard into the flour and add salt eggs and water. then knead the dough with your hands really were due to make it like some exercise.

Next wrap it with foil or put it in a bowl and put it in the fridge for two hours.

Frying the filling for perogi

Now we are making the filling.

Chop the onion, pepper, garlic and saute it with olive oil.
Then add meat and herbs, continue to mix and saute it.

Boil water ad add raisins until the raisins become fat.

Add chili and cut the olives.

Boil the eggs and cut them up and add this all to the mix.  I use olive oil really to do the frying and not a lot.  Just very light so it is not too heavy.

Add salt

Then mixing it all together and fill it.

Add filling to the dough to the perogi

Add it in the traditional way and pinch the pierogi closed.

Again in a pan fry it lightly.  Some people boil but with Mexican dumplings frying in a pan with light olive oil is the best.

It is ready to serve.

This is a quick post is anyone has any more ideas about how to make Polish dumplings Mexican style let me know.  However, the above recipe will work.

Here is a simple way to make milk from Almonds:

Take a handful of almonds and place them in water over night to soak.You do not actually have to do this, however, it softens them up a bit. How much water you can experiment with.  I soak about one handful in 2 cups of water. The next day I add about five cups more.  Some people like it thicker or thinner almond milk.  You will have to play around with it to your taste.

Add honey, vanilla, in a blender and mix it. I do not strain it but most people use a cloth or strainer to take out the Almond paste. The proportions of honey and vanilla, are to taste. I sometimes add coconut milk.

The main thing is Almonds have lots of magnesium and even b17  laetrile which is unproven anti cancer vitamin.  There is no way raw Almond milk can be too unhealthy for you. Many people who are allergic to soy drink this.

One note of caution according to wiki almonds that are bitter combined with water releases cyanide.

I tried to give it to my little daughter to replace her normal milk and she drank a little but preferred her formula or hen goats milk to Almond milk. She is 15 months so do not worry she is not anything like 3 months.

There is nothing more to say about Almond milk it is very easy to make and one handful of almonds will yield a quart of almond milk.

Please let me know if you have any further ideas about almond milk or anything to add.

One of the many reasons I like making Polish pierogies is it is good for me.  Let me explain, I am a computer programmer geek.  I work for very long hours, and I am either staring it at a computer screen, or typing on my blogs. By the end of the day my eyes and hands are very tired.  By the end of the week, I am exhausted .

On Sundays I love to spend the day with my family.  I love Sundays.   We often rent movies, take long walks along the Vistula river here in Krakow, Poland, and sometimes I make pierogies.

How I discovered Pierogi healing

Let me tell you the rest of the story, one day my wife and I had a disagreement over how long it would take to make pierogies.  We live in Poland, and she is from the Polish countryside, and she knows what it takes to make a good dumpling.

I am an American, and believe I can do it any thing with ease.  I said I can make pierogies  in fifteen minutes.  Needless to say she won and I lost. it took me a full three hours to make my first batch of pierogies. I was covered in dough and flour .

Although I was completely defeated, there was a silver lining.  And that was, I had a great time.  I  was listening to classical music, in a warm kitchen with my family,  while I was working the dough.  Most important I was off the computer.  And after I finished my hands felt great.  My overworked hands and eyes from being on the computer all week felt refreshed.

I think working the pierogi dough for so long actually helped my hands that are normally sore from being on the computer all day.

I can now make pierogies in under.  I love to experiment and do not make just traditional Polish or Ukrainian pierogies. I make Mexican, tropical and my own styles of pierogies.  But really if you have every made a batch of peirogies it can be great exercises and requires a lot of physical strength when you work the dough.

Pierogi diet

Further although it seems like this post is on the lighter side, there is some truth to what I write.  Working pierogi dough does help your hands if you are typing too much or sitting on your butt all day at work. This is why I called this post Pierogi healing.  I have thought of taking it a step further and creating a Polish pierogi diet for weight loss or a herbal pierogi for healing.

Since I am both Polish and Ukrainian but born in the USA and live in Poland, I take pride in pierogies and I think just like Mediterraneans have popularized their food, I could popularizes pierogies as a healthy healing diet food as well as fun to make.

One of these days I have to put all my pierogi inventions and recipes and healing herbs in a book.

The purpose of this post is to tell give you a quick review of Mrs t’s pierogies. Why do I know anything about Polish pierogi? The reason is I am an American but I am also Polish, I live in Krakow, Poland.  And as you can guess, I love to make and eat Polish pierogies, and yes I am a guy.

There is nothing wrong with this company ethically or anything, it was started as a family run food company. But there is nothing exceptional about the nutritional value or taste. It is a very processed food with processed cheese and white flour.  They use vegetable oil, I do not use oil in my Polish dumplings but rather maybe  a little olive oil. You are not going to lose weight or get healthy living on these Polish dumplings.

Mrs. T’s Pierogies are what you buy when you are in the USA and are too lazy to make your own.  I use to love them, as they were the closest I could get to Polish cooking in the States without having to go to a Polish store.  They are sold in most stores.  Therefore, I am not going to say anything bad about the.

However, when you compare Mrs. T’s Pierogies to homemade, there is no comparison.  Homemade is 100 times better than a Mrs. T Pierogi. I do not think I could eat them anymore.  However, when I was in a pinch I would pick them up a store.

Advantages of homemade compared to Mrs T’s pierogies

• When you make the dough its great exercises for your hands, especially if you use the computer a lot.
• You can make exotic types, like apple, banana and cinnamon or even more wild types of Polish pierogi.  I make dumplings with herbs like basil or oregano.  Your only limited to how high your imagination can fly.
• They are fresh not frozen. No comparison. Mrs. T’s is a little like fast food compared to Polish cuisine, not bad but not fresh and does not make you feel light when you eat them.
• It is cheaper.
• It is fun to make pierogies
• Much healthier – I use real fresh fruit and cheese. You can even use whole wheat flour or some other variation.  You can make it low fat or use olive oil.

The advantages of Mrs. T’s Pierogies

• Fast and convenient pierogies if you are a working person
• It is good that the company brings a little Polish culture to mainstream American, even if it is Polish cooking.

Mrs. T’s Pierogies rating

Mrs. T's Pierogies do not look like this

I wold give them three stars.  However, this depends if you like in the USA or Poland.  After living in Poland I think they are more like two stars.  But for Americans I will maintain a four star out of five rating.  They have many different types, mostly cheese and potato based pierogies. My favorate pierogies are fruit and meat based pierogies as well as exotic non tradictional Polish cooking pierogies. And this is something Mrs. T’s Pierogies do not have.

The fruit that I pick here in Poland not typically found in the US.

Mini strawberries – These are strawberries the size of your half the size of a pea.  They are way better than huge strawberries grown on American business farms devoid of taste and sprayed with everything you can not image.

Wild roses – The fruit from roses are very healthy, they are every where in Poland I love jam made from them.

Black and read current – has life extension qualities, very popular in the drinks here a very strong taste.

Wild blueberries – not round like american blueberries, but truly wild blueberries, irregular or football shaped.

Every variety of plums

Gooseberries – green cherry size fruit can be bitter can be sweet, good for your nervous system.

Oranges once grew in Poland about 500 years ago when the temperature was warmer as did apricots.  Its interesting to note in Ukraine next door apricots  still do in the southern region of Crimea.

Of course in Poland you find fruit like apples, pears, grapes and all the other things you have in the US.

But my point is there are many wild fruits that grow in Poland I have never seen in the US and certainly can not be found on the super market shelves.

Wild or organic fruit is everywhere in Poland

In fact a lot of the fruit here sold in the market is home grown or picked wild all of it in season. Since more than 20 of the Polish population grows something on a local farm most everything is organic.    I know its hard to believe but its true.  When I go to the village to visit my relatives always I come back with stocks of organic everything, no GMO, wild fruits and other things.

Then I discovered that Polish pickles are made with horseradish (not great if you are pregnant, but ok healthy if you are not), garlic dill and some salt.  No vinegar.  For me this was amazing, I could enjoy a healthy low calorie pickle with a superior taste and no acidic taste to detrimental affects.

Why Polish or Baltic herrings is different from Atlantic or other Herring?

Because the Baltic sea is less salty.  It is a mix between a large lake and a sea. The Baltic is feed by such an enormous supply of fresh water from melting glaciers in Finland and Sweden as well as rivers in Poland that it creates a unique micro environment. I  love Polish herring. It takes different from the herring in the USA.  Maybe its  the same and just my imagination but maybe not.

How herring is served in Poland

Poles prepare herring with vinegar or cream.  I go back and forth which one I like better, but now I think I like cream.  Of course there are many things that can go into herring recipes,  such as onions, red pepper, pineapples or anything you can image. If you go into  any shop in Poland you will see multiple types of Polish herring.  I do not know if  there is anything analogous in the USA.  Maybe like the USA has different types  of breakfast cereals, Poland has different types of śledż (that is the fish I have been writing about).

Basically the ideas is Broth plus shredded beets. First make the broth with meat and vegetables. Bring this to a boil and then simmer from about an hour.   Then latter add the shredded cabbage and beets. At the end I add dill.

Borscht variations

People try all kinds of variations from garlic, some people add fried onions, many people add potatoes to Russian borscht. to everything you can image as ingredients for borscht. The main thing is this is broth plus shredded beets and then you have borscht.

Borscht (borsht, barszcz, and borshch) is a really a Eastern European soup found in Ukraine and Russia but also Poland and other European countries.  I think it is more of a Ukrainian than Russian soup. But my grandparents came from Ukraine so I am partial.

Hot borscht or cold borscht

I prefer cold borscht (its hot out as I write this), but both are great.  I guess it depends where you live in a warm country.

Sour cream or not with Russian Borscht

Again I prefer no sour cream, but I am a borscht purist.

Boil honey or sugar ( 2 cups) and water (four liters). Let this cool to room temperature.

Break up  about a pound of rye bread and any fruit and herbs of your choice and add yeast to make a primary fermentor.

Next add the sweetened water.

Let this bubble up for a few days and then strain the mess out and you will have Kvas. Again it should be basically non-alcoholic Kvass.  If you want to read about a funny kvas story or two go here -> Kvas.  I think you will like it.