Bowlin' on a Budget

Ingredients:

• Filling:
  • 8 small/medium potatoes
  • 3 c old/sharp cheddar cheese
  • 1 large onion
  • 1/2 c butter
  • salt to taste
• Dough:
  • 3 c all-purpose flour
  • Butter the size of an egg, softened
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Begin by preparing the dough. Add flour to a large bowl. Add salt and butter. In a 1c measuring cup, whisk the egg, then fill the cup up the rest of the way with cold water. Pour this over the flour. Mix to combine.
2. Once a shaggy dough has formed, turn onto the counter and knead 5-10 minutes until very smooth, cover and let rest while filling is prepared.
3. Peel and cut potatoes into large chunks, boil until fork tender.
4. While potatoes are boiling, dice onion and add to saucepan with butter, cook over medium low heat, reducing to low once onions are tender.
5. While onions are cooking, shred cheddar cheese.
6. Once potatoes are done, strain them and let sit in strainer to steam and dry out. Once they are no longer steaming, add them to a bowl (or back to pot) and mash potatoes. Add cheese and half of onions and butter from pan. Continue to mash/combine until relatively smooth and cheese is melted. Set aside.
7. Roll dough out until 1/2cm thick, then using a cookie cutter, or a cup, or anything round (ideally about 3-4 inches in diameter) cut circles into dough.
8. Now we get to form the perogies! Grab each circle and gently stretch, add a large spoonful of filling to the center and pinch edges together to form into a half moon shape!
9. Just keep rolling out the scrap dough, cutting circles and filling them until all the dough is gone!
10. Bring a pot of water to a boil on the stove. Once boiling, add 5-6 perogies at a time. Once the perogies are floating, transfer them to saucepan with butter and onions, flipping to ensure they are well coated. Transfer to a plate to let cool.
11. This recipe makes a lot of perogies and they are very freezer friendly, so just add the perogies to a Ziploc bag, once cool. Then when you want to eat them later, just add frozen perogies to pan and they will get nice and crispy!
12. For the ones you want to eat now, you can either eat them as is (as my sister and I used to after stealing them away while my dad was cooking), or pan fry them so they get crispy!