Pirogi And Frozen Stoplight

     The first weekend after break is always hard.  Instead of days on end, Cy and I have only a pair before we have to go back to school.  Today we knuckled down and managed to write all our Christmas thank you cards, even when we wanted to go somewhere for brunch.  After lunch, Dad and I went out to David Douglas High School's pool, were I had a personal coaching session.  On the way home Dad stopped by Food4Less (unsung hero of Sundays strange ingredients) in search of goat to make Birria.  When we got back, Mom and Cy were watching Terminator on our new TV.  The weather was great, it looked a lot like spring, ten bucks says Cy wants to grill in two weeks.  For now though, Cy's staying inside, making Pirogi.
     Cy started cooking earlier, while I was at my coaching session.  When Dad and I got home Cy had made the potato/cheese filling, and the dough was resting underneath a bowl.  When Sarah Connor had driven away from the Mexican gas station in her Jeep, Cy came up, chopped some onions, and threw them onto the stove to start caramelizing.

Not-frozen Stoplight

     Mom and Dad went on a shopping trip to get the last few ingredients we needed together, and while they were out Cy and I worked on the pirogi.  We rolled out the dough, and stuffed them with potato filling.  When Dad got back, he started to boil them.  For pirogi, this meal has been surprisingly easy, probably because Cy got such an early start.  While that's good, I don't think the potato filling was well served by sitting around.  Cy's started working on his mysterious side dish, something with red, yellow and green bell peppers.   For now, all he's doing with that is slicing them up.  We will see what happens there.  Across the kitchen Dad is working on the Otto's kielbasa, adding a little beer to help steam them.  He's also warming up sauerkraut in that pan.  Turns out Cy's mysterious dish is actually something very simple, it a fresh version of what we called "frozen stoplight" when I was a 3 or 4 years old. It was frozen red, yellow and green bell peppers on a plate, and I loved it.  I don't think we've had frozen stoplight since we moved back to Oregon when Cy was just a tiny baby.


     That was good.  And I mean really good!  The sauerkraut and sausage were excellent, and you could just taste the beer.  The pirogi were some of the best we've had, though we're still figuring out the caramelized onions.  We were first introduced to pirogi at the Ukrainian Church in our neighborhood. They sell pirogi and sausages every Saturday as a fund raiser. There is also a new food cart in our neighborhood called "okie-rogi."  It's pretty good, and they've got some interesting fillings - jalapeño, loaded baked potato, "meat" and vegetarian options, too.  Tonight we had some really great pirogi, thanks Cy.