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Food from our Childhood

October 19, 2014

 

Corey's Wareneki inspired by his Grandma (adapted from Mennonite Girls can Cook). When I was in my first year of university at the University of Manitoba I lived with my grandparents who had a house near campus. There were two certainties with life at my grandparents. First, when I would come home from school my grandma would be busy in the kithen preparing dinner. Second, without a doubt the tv would be tuned to the Young and the Restless. I would keep my grandma company in the kitchen while she prepared dinner, doing my homework, talking and of course watching Y&R. One of my favourite meals of hers was homemade wareneki (perogies). There would usually be two or three varities of wareneki but one of the best was a fruit filled perogy topped with a simple sweetened gravy. My grandma would often make her's with plums. In absence of plums you can subsitute most any kind of fruit. I used raspberries and strawberries for mine. Truth be told, plum filled wareneki are still my favourite, the tartness of the plums balanced with the sweetness of the cream gravy...delish.

 

Dough Ingredients:

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 cups flour

1 egg white slightly beaten

1 cup sour cream

 

Dough Instructions:

  1. Place dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.

  2. Stir in egg white and sour cream.

  3. Using your hands, knead until the dough is smooth. Cover and refigerate for 1 hour.

  4. While the dough is chilling, prepare the filling.

  5. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a very thin rectangle.

  6. Using a small scoop, place balls of filling along one end of the dough.

  7. Fold dough over filling. Use a small round cutter to press down over each mound of filling. The dough is very easy to work with and should stick together. If it doesn't, pinch the edges to seal in the filling.

  8. Place wareneki on a parchment-lined baking sheet and refrigerate until ready to boil, or freeze them on the sheet until solid. Store them in freezer bags.

 

Fruit Filling Ingredients:

Fresh plums cut in half

sugar

 

Fruit Filling Instructions:

  1. Place half a plum every few inches along the rolled out dough. Add a pinch of sugar over plums before closing.

 

Wareneki Gravy Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter

1 cup whipping cream

sugar

 

Wareneki Gravy Instructions:

  1. In a small saucepan, melt butter; stir in cream.

  2. Brong to a light boil; reduce heat to a simmer.

  3. Sprinke with sugar.

 

 

 

Kristy's Beet Borscht Growing up in a small Saskatchewan village settled by Ukrainian and Polish immigrants meant that perogies, cabbage rolls and kubasa were school lunch staples.  My mother with her Danish background (and not from the area), was not used to such culinary delights but became enamoured with the beet soup, borscht.  Growing up, borscht and cheese sandwiches were a childhood lunchtime staple.  Mom would prepare massive quantities of the soup during late August, filled with freshly grown veggies from the farm garden.  Not only would the soup would provide a healthy dose of veggies in the middle of winter, it would help warm the cold cheeks that were inevitable after spending hours working on the snow fort.

 

 

Ingredients:

8 small beets with tops (I also added 1 cup of swiss chard)

1 medium onion

1 small carrot

½ cup of green beans (or peas)

1 medium potato (diced)

1 small celery stalk

2 cups shredded cabbage

 

6 cups of soup stock

5 cups of water

½ cup of tomato juice

1 tbsp of flour (or cornstarch)

½ cup of sour cream

1 tbsp of dill (or more, as I like my borsch dilly)

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Instructions:

  1. Wash beets and cut into small strips.

  2. Place in soup pot with other veggies.

  3. Cover with water and stalk.

  4. Cook until the veggies are tender (about 30 minutes).

  5. Add the tomato juice (I also added a handful of tomatoes).

  6. Blend the flour with the sour cream and stir into the borsch, bringing to a boil.

  7. Add the dill and season with salt and pepper.

  8. Before serving, you can add a slash of lemon to brighten the soup to taste. 

Kristy's Honey Cookies. Ok… this should not come as a surprise, given my picture, but I love cookies.  I always have and always will.  Even growing up my favorite Sesame Street character was Cookie Monster. When I was little, my mom made all sorts of cookies…but mostly “healthy ones”.  You know, the ones with raisins, nuts and oatmeal, and very rarely the sweet kind.  However, one time she made Honey Cookies… I don’t know when or why (because again, they were a Ukrainian dessert) but I was hooked.  No one else really liked them, but I did.  So when Mom would ask what kind of cookies to make, she would occasionally make Honey Cookies just for me.  These cookies go very well with a cup of English Tea, and when I occasionally make these cookies, I only make them for myself. 

 

Ingredients (cookies):

1 cup brown sugar (I suggest you cut this back to ½ cup)

1 cup of butter

2 eggs

2 tsps baking soda

¾ cup of honey

Flour (as needed)

 

Instructions:

  1. Mix above in order.

  2. Add flour based upon need, as enough flour will be required to roll out the cookie dough.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut with a round cookie cutter.

  4. Bake at 325 for 12 to 15 minutes.

 

Ingredients (icing):

½ cup sugar

½ cup water

1 pkg gelatine (or gelatine substitute)

2 egg whites

 

Instructions:

  1. Beat well until very stiff.

  2. Place icing between 2 cooled cookies.

  3. The icing will soften the cookie into a cakey cookie.  

 

I do not use the icing as this was not my favourite part as a kid, and I just preferred the cookie.

Yolanda's potstickers. I chose to make potstickers for dinner club as I always loved dumplings and potstickers as a kid.  On occasion my mom would make them for us and it was kind of like a treat as she did not make them very often.  This was my first attempt at making potstickers completely from scratch (wrapper and all!!) and vegetarian.  I would definitely make them again.

 

Ingredients (filling):

1 package of marinated tofu chopped into small cubes

8 bunches of mini bok choy (can add more if you like)

1 small napa cabbage

1 inch ginger, minced

 

Instructions:

  1. Mix bok choy, napa cabbage and ginger in food processor (don’t overmix). 

  2. In larger bowl, mix with chopped tofu by hand (i.e. wooden spoon).

  3. Add sesame oil and soy sauce to mixture.

 

Ingredients (wrappers):

2 cups of all purpose flour

¾ cup hot boiling water

Additional flour for working with

 

Instructions:

  1. Measure out the flour into a large bowl.

  2. Slowly add the hot water to the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Knead the dough in the bowl with hands until smooth and sort of elastic.

  4. Dough should not be sticky.

  5. Cover the dough in plastic wrap or a damp towel and let rest for at least 15 minutes and up to two hours.

  6. Pull off small portions of dough and roll into ball.

  7. Roll out into circles and fill with filling.

 

Ingredients (sauce - all to taste):

Soy sauce

Sesame sauce

Chili black bean sauce

Satay sauce

 

Cooking Instructions:

  1. To cook potstickers, oil pan and add potstickers. 

  2. Once hot, add water (approximately ¼ inch – ½ inch depending on how many you are cooking) to pan and cover all potstickers. 

  3. Once all water is absorbed remove cover and pan fry til bottom is crispy. 

  4. Enjoy!!

Salima's Mac&Cheese. My mother used to make this for me on weekends for lunch - she'd give me a little CorningWare bowl of it to eat. As I got older, she always made me stir the sauce forever and ever and she'd keep checking on me to make sure it wasn't sticking to the bottom of the pan!

 

Ingredients (filling):

2.5 cups of cooked macaroni elbows

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon four

2 cups of milk (2% or fattier is better)

Velveeta cheese slices to taste

Salt & Pepper to taste

Chili powder to taste

Grated cheese

 

Instructions:

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan on medium high heat.  When it starts bubbling (not burning!) add the flour and stir until a paste forms.

  2. Add the milk and keep stirring the mixture.  Slowly bring to boil.

  3. Break up the cheese slices into small squares

  4. When milk is bubbly, add velveeta cheese slices (I usually add about 6) one by one.  Keep stirring and let them melt into the milk mixture

  5. Add salt and pepper to taste, and chili powder if desired

  6. Make sure macaroni is drained well (no water or it will make the cheese watery).  Put macaroni in dish that can go in the oven. Pour cheese mixture over macaroni and mix. 

  7. Sprinkle grated cheese on top.

  8. Bake for 15 mins or until top is golden brown.

 

 

 

Salima's Bharazi. This was a staple easy dinner in our house - we ate it all the time and it's delicious!

 

Ingredients

500 ml of canned green pigeon peas

 

For the cream:

About half a package of coconut cream

Approximately 2 cups of water

Dash of turmeric powder

Fresh green  hot pepper according to taste (you can always add red pepper later if you want to make it more spicy)

1/4th teaspoon of garlic

Salt to taste

Lemon juice

Chopped coriander

 

Instructions:

  1. Open the can of pigeon peas and drain the water.  Run a bit of cold water over it and keep aside.

  2. In  a saucepan combine water, coconut cream, green pepper,  turmeric, crushed garlic and salt and cook over stove at just a little over medium temperature, until the cream thickens – not watery.

  3. Add pigeon peas and cook for a short time to get  the pigeon peas properly soaked in the cream.

  4. Change the temperature to low for a short time to enable a little bit of excess oil to surface to the top.

  5. Cool.

  6. Add lemon juice.

  7. Sprinkle coriander when serving.

  8. Serve with rice or chapatti (roti).

 

 

Salima's Makai (Corn)Paka. This was a staple easy dinner in our house - we ate it all the time and it's delicious!

 

Ingredients

3-4 ears of corn

Cream recipie from above (Bharazi)

1 1/2 tsp of tomato paste

Lemon juice

 

Instructions:

  1. Cut each piece of corn into three pieces to make it easy to eat. Boil in water until cooked and drain.

  2. Prepare coconut cream as outlined in the recipe for Bharazi (you may need slightly more coconut cream).

  3. Add 1 to 1 1/2 tsp. of tomato paste when the cream is beginning to get thick.

  4. Add corn to the cream when ready and let the cream soak in the corn for a short time.

  5. Lower the temperature for a short time to enable a little bit of excess oil to surface to the top. Spoon off excess oil.

  6. Let cool.

  7. Add lemon juice.

  8. Sprinkle a bit of ground cinnamon and red chillies (optional) and chopped coriander before serving.

 

 

Salima's Grandmother's Mandazi. Adapted from Khatoon's Kitchen. This is a treat that my grandmother used to make for me. I unfortunately don't have her authentic recipe, but this one I think is pretty close. When I was little, I had long hair (two long braids like any good east Indian girl) and my grandmother would make me mandazi in the shape of braids. She would literally cut three strips of dough and braid it first. I loved this. She would make the dough before going to bed and then wake up in the middle of the night at the perfect time to knead it and roll it out so that the mandazi were perfect! Crazy lady, but a loving grandmother and amazing cook!

 

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup oil for the dough

1/2 cup coconut cream, diluted with 1/2 cup warm water

1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp cardamom seeds (ground)

1/2 cup flour for rolling

3 cups oil for deep frying

 

Instructions:

  1. Soak the yeast in a quarter cup of warm water with 1 tsp sugar. Cover tightly to let it rise for about 10 to 15 minutes. When the yeast has fully fermented, mix it with the warm coconut cream. Keep aside.

  2. In a large dish, sieve the flour, add sugar, oil and cardamom seeds and bind with the coconut cream and yeast mixture to make a soft dough.

  3. Grease a deep warm metal pan and transfer the dough to this pan covering it tightly to let it rise in a warm place. This will take about 3 to 4 hours. The dough should resemble pizza dough. You may adjust it by adding a little flour or cream if necessary.

  4. When the dough has risen considerably, divide it into 8 equal portions. Roll out each protion about 1/4 inch thick and 4 inches round on a lightly floured pastry board.

  5. Cut the rounds to make make crescent shapes. Place all the rolled out pastries on paper towels on a table for 30 minutes to let them rise again.

  6. Deep fry the mandazi in hot oil in a nonstick deep wok 3 to 4 pieces at a time to give them ample space to rise and cook. This will depend upon the size of your pan. Do not over-crowd the pan. The mandazi should puff up and become golden brown on both sides by flipping once or twice.

  7. Transfer the cooked mandazi to a colander to drain the oil, then arrange on an absorbent paper-lined try.

 

 

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