Pierogies

With school-age children involved in various activities, sometimes meals need to be quick and easy to prepare. We have several easy meals that we rotate on a regular basis that get us through these busy nights without a lot of fuss. This week, between Tae Kwon Do, a PTO meeting and an open house at school, we have something going on every single night!


One of our favorite quick meals is pierogies. I like the store-bought kind so well, I haven't even tried to make my own, though I'm sure they are fabulous. Until we moved, we always bought Mrs. T's pierogies, but now that we have a Wegmans, we decided to give their own store brand a try. The Wegmans brand is every bit as tasty as Mrs. T's and slightly cheaper (about 20 cents per box), but they don't have all that extra pasta around the edges like Mrs. T's. Without all the extra pasta - and who needs the extra pasta anyway - all 12 (sometimes 13) fit in the pan at one time, making them even easier to get to the table quickly.

My "recipe" for pierogies is to simply boil the pierogies until they begin to float to the top. While the pierogies are boiling, I sauté about a 1/2 cup of chopped onion in a little butter. Once the pierogies are finished boiling, I add them to pan along with a bit of salt and pepper, and sauté until they begin to turn a golden brown.

That's it! We like to serve pierogies with either tomato soup or a salad which makes for a quick, easy, and fairly nutritious meal. I say "fairly nutritious" because it is, after all, a store-bought product which brings with it certain additives and things I'd rather avoid, but pairing it with a nutritous soup or salad ups the nutrition factor quite a bit. In any case, it certainly beats out a run through the drive-thru!

The drawback for Wegmans pierogies? I did not study the nutrition labels in the store, but according to the Wegmans package and the info on the Mrs. T's website, Wegmans cheddar cheese pierogies appear to have 10g of fat per 4 pierogies, compared to 2.5 per 3 pierogies for Mrs. T's. On the other hand, Mrs. T's pierogies are made with dehydrated potatoes and cheese, whereas Wegmans are made with fresh potato and real cheddar (although further down, they also list "cheddar paste" - not sure what that is). I think we'll stick with Wegmans for the fresher ingredients, slightly lower price and less extraneous pasta.

Tags: Wegmans, pierogies, food