Pierogies With Peas, Pimientos, and Sauerkraut.

I’m sure I’ve espoused my deep love of the cast-iron skillet in these pages before, but please allow me to do so again now.  Alongside my beloved Crock-Pot and French oven, the cast-iron skillet is one of the very best and most versatile cooking supplies I have on hand, and I just don’t know what I’d do without it.  From delicious pancakes to skillet potatoes, from sauces to tonight’s pierogies, it handles every single meal with aplomb, and I only wonder how I made it as long as I did without my own personal skillet!

But my cast iron is just a new baby.  My grandmother’s skillet, on the other hand, has been in service for the better part of eight decades (and perhaps more than that – it’s entirely likely that it originally belonged to my great-grandmother).  My aunt has it now, but I’m hopeful that one of these days it will end up here in my kitchen, well-seasoned and smooth as silk.

Skillets.  They stand the test of time, living longer than most of us.  You’ve just gotta love a kitchen appliance like that.

Anyway, on to tonight’s dinner.

I knew I wanted to make pierogies tonight, and originally I’d planned a tossed salad to accompany it.  But we’ve had salad several times lately, and quite honestly I’ve developed a little bit of salad fatigue as a result!  So I combed the cabinets instead and came up with a plan.  Why not add peas and pimientos to the skillet near the end and make a one-pot meal?  Why not, indeed.

So I heated some oil in the cast iron, put the pierogies in to begin to heat, and after 10 or so minutes I flipped them over to brown on the other side.  After another seven minutes, I flipped them back over to finish cooking, added the can of peas, the jar of diced pimientos, and a hearty helping of sauerkraut, and then topped the dish with a sprinkling of pepper.  Everything was nicely heated within another five minutes, and that was that! 

The final result was fantastic.  The peas and pimientos added color to the plate, yes, but more importantly they added depth to the final product, balancing the potatoes and cheese with some light, fresh-tasting vegetables.  And the sauerkraut was just the cherry (?) on top, adding the perfect amount of zing.

I confess there are no leftovers – we mowed down every last morsel, and would’ve considered scraping the pan had it not still been so hot!  But it was indeed a successful meal – an invention that I’ll definitely cook again in the future. 

:)