Perfecting Perogies

Recently I prepared perogies from scratch for the first time. It was a daunting thought at first but I decided I was up for the challenge!
My husband’s mother is Polish and we always have a huge traditional feast every Christmas eve. complete with borscht, uszkas, perogies, fresh bread, kucia (a dessert) and even pickled herring. To make things even more interesting, my husband’s father, who is from India, often prepares a traditional Indian dish as well. It is a foodie’s dream, really!
I wanted to contribute this year as I had some free hands (last year I was baby-minding) and was eager to learn the ‘art of making traditional perogies’.
Being the holistic foodies that I am though, I had to find a way around the ‘white flour dilemma’, so I decided to make them with half spelt flour. My mother-in-law gave me her blessing (in fact, we attempted making them this way previously to test it out and found them quite nice).
* I believe you could even use ¾ spelt or even all spelt with the right tweaking to the recipe (and if you can work with stickier dough)

I wanted to involve my little Oskar in the process, partly to introduce a family tradition and also to encourage his support in the kitchen. I hope that this will develop a healthy love of food including its preparation!
I strongly encourage all parents to involve your kids in the kitchen, from a young age, and especially if they are finicky eaters. It has shown to significantly improve their eating habits and it is a wonderful way to bond with your child, especially if you create a loving and patient environment to practice in.

Note: When involving little ones, be prepared to spend a LOT more time and have a LOT more mess…but also a LOT more fun!