Patience

 Patience.  I'm not known for it but I'm working on it and getting better.  It's only with patience that a person can attempt to bake bread.  I love bread.  Good bread. My attempts at bread baking are a family joke but it does turn out, sometimes. I can do the cinnamon rolls and bunduki and small things but getting a loaf of bread to come out well and taste good, well, the success has been elusive. That doesn't mean I don't keep trying.   

For Christmas I received a wonderful book called Breadsong by Al and Kitty Tate.  At just 13 Kitty was suddenly consumed with anxiety and panic and couldn't seem to get out of it.  Her parents tried everything.   One day she watched her dad make a loaf of sourdough bread, one of those overnight in the cast iron pot things and it intrigued her and suddenly she had something to focus on. For the next couple of years her life, and that of her family was transformed by baking.  It's really a wonderful read.  In the back are her recipes. 

As you might remember from my adventures with sour dough and the starter I named Montana which eventually went to live with my next door neighbor, I'm not looking for another pet. So, because you can't read the book and NOT want to bake bread, I started with their loaf called Biga Bread. The process was different for but I soldiered on.

It turned out quite edible (for me, no reflection on them) but I had to make some adjustments. The heat of the oven was much too hot thus the browned top but the crumb is good and, I can't believe I'm saying this about ANY baked good, it's actually better on this, the third day.  I'm kind of a snob about wanting my baked goods fresh the day of. This is a pleasant surprise on day three.

And since it's just after the holidays and we have to balance all of those sweets with more carbs and starch, I was inspired to try pierogis after Friend Barb and I got talking about them.  Her son wants her to make some and I've never made them so why not?  

Now, this was my plan for Thursday while the Biga Bread was spending hours and hours proofing. But I had an unexpected thing to do so planned it for Friday.  PH and I are good at pivoting.  We spent Friday in the car.  So. Today. Pierogi.

I spent some time looking up recipes and decided everyone who makes them thinks theirs is the only and authentic recipe out there.  Wrong. It's like Grandma's spaghetti sauce, everyone has their own recipe and they are all different and theirs is the best.  I printed out two.  One was someone's grandma's and one was from the King Arthur website.

Very differerent. Very different.  The grandma recipe was very soft, easy to roll out and maneuver in my hand as I pinched the ends together

The King Arthur recipe dough was very stiff, it took ALL of my strength to roll it out and I mean that. I  almost didn't go with it.  It was a solid brick of dough.  But I made it so I used it. I rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled and thought of the Pasta Grannies and was inspired to keep going.   Many of them make something like this but call it different.  Potato and cheese (I used Ricotta) and sometimes onion (I did add caramelized onion) was the same.  The dough was very unforgiving, stiff after cut BUT when it came to pinching them shut the King Arthur dough was much easier to control.  Hmmmm

I made a few for taste testing. The deal is to boil them till they float then saute them in butter.  In Italy the pasta grannies pour melted butter over them instead of  sauteeing them in butter.  PH agreed with me, surprisingly, the King Arthur ones were better  if you are going to eat them as pierogi are eaten.  The others, the softer ones, I will place into the piva zupa (Polish Beer Soup) as we heat that up.

So, patience needed and applied and success.  

We were looking forward to promised sunshine today.  We haven't had sun since the beginning of December (yes, that's right ) and they promised today would be glorious but it was just as  gloomy as  the past weeks have been.  It's like walking around with a pillow case over your head. 

Quilting?  I'm plugging away at the butterflies and last night started putting the little squares on the soon to be pillow top.  Once you get the first square centered and sewn down, the rest can be lined up with that one so it goes well.