Vareniky

The other night Ben asked if I was sad that Alison doesn't get my grandma's kielke and vareniky. Now that he said that, it really does. My grandma always let the grandkids choose which one they wanted for their birthday and would make them a special dinner. They were meals that were always very special to me and it is sad that the tradition is fading away. I've helped my grandma many times in the kitchen cooking these meals, but for some reason when I attempt it myself, it's usually not very pretty. I remember one time I decided I was going to make vareniky for my parents shortly after Ben and I were married. They walked in the door and I was in tears. My parents jumped in and saved the meal and I'm pretty sure that was my last attempt. As we were talking about the things we want to pass on to Alison and soon-to-be-baby Shear, Ben said it was important to him that they get to have these special meals too. So he decided to take on perfecting them...which we all know wouldn't take very long. The first challenge came in finding a couple of key ingredients. As I look at these old German recipes I know why they made them-they're made of basic ingredients they would have on hand. I, however do not have on hand dry curd cottage cheese and country sausage. We had to figure out how to dry regular cottage cheese. After 3 experiments, we found the right method. We also found some country sausage this morning at the Farmer's Market. Though the ingredients are basic, these meals take some time. We had to make the vareniky last night and then let them dry over night.I will add that I was just the assistant in the making of this meal. With my track record I thought it was best to let the dough expert do his work.All the varinky drying. We were a little confused why we still had most of the filling still left.
For some reason my camera didn't keep the pictures I took during the meal. I got some really cute ones of Alison eating, but I guess you'll just have to imagine how cute she was. So, this is what's left of our meal. We thought about having guests over tonight and clearly it was smart that we didn't. We each had 4 bowls and I could have eaten more, but I refrained. Ben said he'd make this for us a couple times a year, but not any since you can see how "healthy" it is for us:)I forgot to add how amazingly DELICIOUS it was! The sausage tasted a little different than we hoped but everything was just amazing. I also forgot to add how much it means to me that Ben did this for us. I'm so thankful that my heritage is just as important to him as his is and he's willing to jump in and help me carry it on.