Pierogi Lasagne

One of the things I love to make are Pierogi's. If you are not familiar with what they are . . . they are an Eastern European Dumpling with is made with a type of pasta dough covering and a potato based filling. The filling can have mushrooms in it with the potato, or meat, sauerkraut, cabbage or cheese, or sometimes even a mixture of several of those . . . but almost always it will have potato.

They are kind of like Eastern European Ravioli . . . and you boil them in lightly salted water and then fry them in butter with onions. Served up with a dollop of Sour Cream, they are a real treat! I normally make my own from Scratch following a recipe given to me by a Hungarian friend many, many years ago. (If you click on that it will take you to the recipe and some tasty photos of them.)

There was no rolling out and filling dumplings, or boiling them. There was no frying them in butter. You simply fry some onions, boil some lasagne noodles and make some mashed potatoes. The potatoes are mixed with cheese and some of the fried onions, and then layered with the noodles in a baking dish, and baked. It was really easy!

The recipe does make a rather lot and it says you can freeze it, but in all honesty . . . I have never liked the texture of potato dishes once they've been frozen. I was able to successfully cut the recipe down to a third the original quantity, serving only 4 so that was great! We had it fresh one night, served up with a salad and then we had the leftovers reheated for a quick supper the day after with some vegetables.

It's probably not the healthiest meal in the world . . . mostly because of the cheese and fried onions . . . but it's probably a lot healthier for you than regular pierogis because you are not sauteeing anything but the onions in fat. And in fact, I cut the amount of oil used to fry the onions down quite a bit as well, only using 1 TBS for the whole lot, which divided between 4 servings would be quite considerably less.

Using half fat cheese for the filling, and low fat sour cream for the garnish meant that it wasn't all that bad for us. It was cheap to make, filling and incredibly tasty! We both enjoyed it very much . . . even the pasta hater in the house!

*Pierogi Lasagne*

Serves 12

This is

fantastically delicious! It's also very easy to make and quite

economical. It's also quite easy to cut the recipe down. I cut it

down by a third today and it was fabulous.

Heat

the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onions.

Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes, until they are lightly

browned. Don't let them burn. Reserve several TBS to sprinkle over

the top of the casserole. Stir the remainder into the mashed potatoes,

along with 3/4 of the cheddar cheese and the cream cheese. Taste and

adjust seasoning as desired.

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 9 by 13 inch glass baking dish.

Cover

the bottom of the dish with 1/4 of the noodles. Top with 1/3 of the

potato mixture, spreading it out with a fork. Top with another fourth

of the noodles. Repeat with 1/3 of the potatoes. Top with another

fourth of the noodles and then the remainder of the potatoes. Top with

the last of the lasagne noodles Sprinkle with the remainder of the

cheese and sprinkle with the last of the sauteed onions.

Bake for

25 to 30 minutes, until heated through and golden brown on top. Let

stand 5 minutes before cutting into squares to serve.

Optional: Garnish each serving with a dollop of sour cream.