cranberry-orange relish

Using food processor finally chop:
1 bag of fresh cranberries (12 oz)
1 whole orange
1/2 - 3/4 cup sugar

Refrigerate several hours before serving.
Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

** Don't forget to rinse and dry your fruit before using it!

pickle soup - ogorkowa

Ingredients:
1 -2 lb pork (country style ribs)
1 ts salt
1 cut up onion
3 cut up carrots
2 cut up potatoes
beef bullion
32oz grated or cut up dill pickles
1/2 cup sour cream

1. In a 4 qt pot bring to a boil 1 -2 lb pork (country style ribs), 1 ts salt & water. Discard the scum from the top.
2. Reduce the temperature, add rest of the ingredients (onion, carrots, potatoes, beef bullion) & cover the pot.
3. Simmer for about 30 min or until potatoes & carrots are soft.
4. Add grated or cut up dill pickles (you can also use liquid from the pickles) - continue simmering for additional 15 min.
5. In a soup bowl dissolve 1/2 cup sour cream with some liquid from your soup then add it to the cooking pot. Continue to heat soup thoroughly but do not boil. Enjoy!

Golabki (cabbage rolls)

Ingredients:

1 whole head cabbage (large)
1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked rice (I use the white rice - about 5 oz uncooked)
1 lb. ground pork
1 lb. ground beef
1 cut chopped onion (option - saute the onion in Canola oil in a frying pan until tender)
1 ts salt
1/4 ts pepper
3 beef bullions (dissolve them in 1 cup of water)

1. Remove core from cabbage. Place whole head in a large pot filled with boiling, salted water. Cover and cook 3 minutes, or until softened enough to pull off individual leaves.
2. When leaves are cool enough to handle, cut away the thick center stem from each leaf, without cutting all the way through. OR smash it with a meet tenderizer.
3. Mix onions, beef, pork, rice, salt and pepper.
4. Place about a 1/2-cup of meat on each cabbage leaf. Roll away from you to encase the meat. Flip the right side of the leaf to the middle, then flip the left side. You will have something that looks like an envelope. Once again, roll away from you to create a neat little roll.
5. Place any unused leaves (too small, damaged, or cut up cabbage core) in a big pot ( I use 8qt). This will protect golabki from burning. Put your golabki on top of this. Pour beef stock over them adding water, so the liquid almost covers them.
6. Bring to boil, reduce the heat, cover the pot. Let it simmer for about 45-1hr.


check this recipe too:
http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/maincourses/r/StuffedCabbage.htm

Kabanosy

Hank uses this recipe:
http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-recipes/kabanosy.htm

1.	meat selection	Pork - 5 kg (11 lb). 80/20 meat - pork butt, ham, shoulder or other Meat total : 5 kg (11 lb).	salt pepper garlic nutmeg caraway sugar Cure #1	100g 7.5g 5g 3g 2.5g 10g 14g	3.5oz 0.26oz 0.18oz 0.10oz 0.09oz 0.35oz ½ oz	5 Tbs. 3 tsp. 2cloves 1¼ tsp. 1 tsp. 2 tsp. 2 tsp.
	ingredients
2.	curing	Cut meat into 2" dimeter pieces, and add 1 tsp Cure #1, 1 tsp of sugar and 4 Tbs of salt. Mix well together, pack tightly in a container leaving some space on top and cover. Place in refrigerator for 72 hrs.
3.	grinding	Grind lean pork with 3/8"" plate, fatter pieces with 3/16" plate.
4.	mixing	Add remaining 1 Tbs of salt and all other ingredients and thouroghly mix with ground meat.
5.	stuffing	Stuff mixture into sheep casings 22 mm diameter. You may use 24-26 mm sheep casings, anything bigger will not be a meat stick but a sausage.It will also need different smoking and cooking times. Link sausage into 60-70cm (24-27") links so when hung on a smoking stick the individual links (half of the meat stick) will be about one foot long. You can make shorter 6" links if you like. Don't separate stuffed sausage into short individual links, leave it linked but as one long rope. Prick any visible air pockets with a needle.
6.	drying	Leave it hanging on smoke sticks in a cool place at 35-42º F (2-6ºC) for 12 hours. It is permitted to dry it at room temperature for 30-60 min and then to smoke it.
7.	smoking	Kabanosy are smoked in two stages : 1. smoking with hot smoke 104-122 º F (40-50ºC) for 50-60 min and then 2. cooking for about 20 min at 140-190 º F (60-90 º C) until the meat reaches temperature of 154-160 º F (68-71 º C inside. The color of the casings should be dark brown.
8.	cooking	see smoking. Total smoking and cooking time about 70 - 90 min. This is rather short time due to a small diameter of the meat sticks.
9.	cooling	Place Kabanosy for 5-7 days in a room at 54-64 º F (12-18 ºC), relative humidity of 75-80 %, until the weight is reduced by 45 %. If during this drying period you will see slight accumulation of mould on outside surface, just wipe it off, this is normal.
10.	storing	Separate links into individual pieces and keep it in a cool place, no need to refrigerate. In Europe they hang in the kitchen and are consummed on a need basis. If you have made a lot of them, place them in a freezer but remember that unfrozen products, though still healthy, never taste the same.
	notes	If you don't want to bother with curing meat, at least dry stuffed sausage in refrigerator overnight to give salt and nitrite some extra time for curing.

sauerkraut - mushrooms pierogi

Filling for 2 sets of dough:
1 medium cut up onion fried in butter until it becomes translucent.
Add Polish dried mushrooms (first soak them for a few hours, then get as much of the water out as possible, next finely chopped them - I save this water, which I drain through the coffee filter, so I don't get any sand from my mushrooms)
[You can use canned mushrooms - finely chopped. Or you can use "Bulion grzybowy" which will give you the taste of the Polish dried mushrooms]
Add:
three cans of 14.4oz. sauerkraut (First: drain and wash the sauerkraut to reduce the sharp acid flavor - don't over-wash)
Fry all this on butter for about 5 min , then simmer (about 30 min-1 hr) adding saved water if you are using Polish mushrooms. Finally, add salt and pepper to taste.

Dough:
1 egg
1/2 cup warm milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbs melted butter

Combine, knead & rest dough for 30 min, knead again, roll out thin 1/8", cut 3 3/4" rounds (I use my Bread & Dough Maker machine -I set to DOUGH & take out my dough after 30 min. Then we [H is helping here] use pasta machine with setting #3 - I get about 35-40 pierogi).

Add 1 tsp. filling, fold and pinch sealing. Boil pierogi for 5 min, take them out & drain.

I cover pierogi with melted butter (we like when butter is a little brown).
If we are making them in advance, then I put pierogi in a "boilable cooking bags" - this way later whenever I need them I just put the bag in a boiling water, or microwave the bag with my pierogi.

*** makes about 24 pierogi
***using pasta machine with setting #3 - I get about 35-40 pierogi

Bourbon balls - from I.C.

Combine:
1 cup finely crushed vanilla wafers
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbs unsweetened cocoa

Add:
2 oz. bourbon (I use Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey)
1 1/2 tbs. light corn syrup

Combine everything, blend well, cover & chill 1 hr. or more.

Shape balls (about 1 inch in diameter) & roll in powdered sugar.
Store in refrigerator or freeze.

Fried "pierogi‏"

Hank and I have been experimenting and after 2 complete failed attempts & 1 1/2 days wasted we got the perfect fried mushroom pierogi - just like my mom use to make or as close as we can get. Making mushrooms stuffing was easy - I guess I paid more attention to it when we made it with my mom, but I never liked to play with dough.

After each attempt of making that dough I was so disappointed that we could not get close to my mom's dough recipe. I am just glad that my mom did not see us dumping all that dough :-[ and Hank wanting to try again.
One of the disaster dough Hank baked as bread.
Hank went on internet & found recipe for Crispellis, from which we finally perfected the recipe to what we have.
http://recipecircus.com/recipes/DsNonna/ETHNIC/Crispellis.html
Our final product Hank did the dough by hand (did not use a bread machine), and we fried pierogi in Crisco one side & then the other for a few minutes until they are golden brown using an electric skillet at 360*.

Dough:
4 cups flour
Package of yeast
2 cups very warm water
1 ½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon baking power
2 teaspoons salt

Mix the ingredients. After the dough is made, let it rise for at least 1 hr. You will have a very sticky dough that is hard to work with!

Mushroom stuffing was made with:
fried chopped onions (large)
fried chopped mushrooms (3 12oz. packages)
salt, pepper, & some breadcrumbs (I used 2 tablespoons - to keep the moisture from mushrooms - not too much of breadcrumbs)
When everything was mixed I send it through meat grinder.

Take about a 1 Tbs. size of dough and spread out in your hand to form a disk (not to thick).
Place about a 1 tsp of stuffing into the disk and seal the ends and gently roll into egg shape dough balls, set aside under a towel so they don't dry.
When you have made about 8-12 dough balls place into hot oil and fry for about 3 min. until golden brown then roll over and fry the top side until golden brown.
Remove and drain on paper towels.

We made 40 of the fried mushroom pierogi & I had a little bit of stuffing left.
I am keeping them for Christmas Eve - they freeze great.