Colourful comfort. . .

Winnipeg has so much culture. It's a huge reason I love it so much. When it comes to my recent cooking, I've gravitated a lot towards the European influences on food I've experienced in the city. Since I was a kid and going to lil church functions, there would always be an abundance of cabbage rolls and pierogies. It wasn't until I was down south where these dishes aren't really found that I started trying to cook it for myself. Since Chris and his fam are from PA, they also grew up with these dishes and it's somethin we were totally missin down in NC.
Last night, my two ladies and I whipped up my homemade pierogies with potato, cheese, kraut, bacon and onions. So delicious. Don't have a recipe for the filling, just kinda threw stuff together and it worked! Jessie made her mom's purple cabbage. Wow. A really simple, healthy, inexpensive dish that's got really great, balanced flavor..not to mention i LOVE the purple colour!! The only ingredients were purple cabbage, onion, cloves, bay leaves, sugar, vinegar.
Unfortunately, our comforting meal came at a painful price! I was using a wine glass to cut the dough and it broke. I probably pressed down too hard and sliced my right hand and my left ring finger. My finger bled for like half an hour or so. Gross. Lol.
My girls came to my rescue and I am A-OK! I'm so clumsy and accident prone. Less than a week ago I burned my finger twice on sugar I was melting for Leche Flan. Geez.
As much as I love cabbage rolls, the thought of spending all that time rolling individual pieces doesn't appeal much to me. I found a recipe for a cabbage roll casserole. So much easier with all the flavor.



The Living Winnipeg site that I got the recipe from doesn't seem to be up anymore so all I can say is for the recipe I used ground beef, onions, tomato soup, bacon, rice, cabbage. The secret ingredient: topping it with a really good pasta sauce for added flavor instead of just using soup. I've got Jessie to thank for that tip!



Ingredients for the perfect Flan

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 1 (14 ounce) can condensed milk
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ounce cream cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Select 2 oven safe containers, one that can easily fit inside the other.
3. The large one will be used for a water bath and the smaller one will actually house the flan.
4. Fill the larger container a little less than half way with water and place in the cold oven to heat up while you prepare the caramel and the custard.
5. In a large pan, using a wooden spoon caramelize the sugar until it turns a light golden brown. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TOUCH IT! I promise you it's like molten lava.
   
6. While still hot, transfer the melted sugar to the smaller container, swirling it around until the entire bottom is covered then set aside.
7. In a blender add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
8. Open up the oven where you have placed the water bath and then place the small pan with the caramel inside the large water bath pan.
9. Pour the custard into the pan being careful not to splash it.
10. Bake for 30- 45 minutes until the top is golden brown and the center passes a toothpick test.
11. Remove from oven and allow to cool on rack.
12. You may invert this onto a large serving dish with lip or just server out of container you cooked it inches.

Polish Pierogi Dough

• 4 c All-purpose flour
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 c Sour cream
• 1 ts Salt
• 2/3 c Warm water

Just mix and knead everything together, cover and let rest for at least 1o minutes. Roll it out into about 1/8 inch thickness, cut out circles, fill with dough, wet edges, fold over, boil dumplings til they float to the surface. Very easy but can be time consuming!