my mother would be proud

Tonight I made my first attempt at cooking my all time favorite comfort food (yes Mom, I've never made it before). Trust me when I say that you have never heard of it, or anything similar for that matter, and you have definitely never dreamed someone would put this combination of flavors together.

Want to hear what it is?



Ready?



Really?



Okay.......



My all time favorite comfort food is....noodles, cottage cheese, and prunes.


Yeah. That's what I thought you would do. Every time I have ever told any one about this meal, I either heard some sort of choking and spluttering, occasionally accompanied by whatever liquid had previously been consumed subsequently being spit across the room, or I have seen a facial expression that is comparable to the typical reaction to ingesting a mouthful of sour milk.


I know, it sounds a little a crazy. Tonight, when we were over at a friend's house, he asked me, "What was it that Jeremy mentioned you made for dinner tonight? Rice and gummi bears?" But I promise, it is truly delicious, and it has some fairly legitimate culinary roots. You see, my grandmother Veda was Slovenian, and one of her specialties (among many) was making handmade pierogies the good ole' fashioned way. She mixed and rolled the dough herself, cut, filled, and sealed each pierogie individually, then boiled them all together and as the final glorious step poured browned butter over the whole bowl (if you've never had anything with browned butter, I highly suggest you add it to your list). Half of the pierogies were filled with ricotta, and the other half were filled with stewed prunes. As odd as I know it sounds, the whole dish is just this fantastic mix of savory and sweet that just works perfectly together.
The pierogies never failed to be delicious, and we always looked forward to a visit from Veda so we could have some, but the problem was that they were incredibly time consuming. We felt a little bad making her prepare them, and when she wasn't visiting, it was just unreasonable to try to prepare them when there was so much other stuff that needed to be done. So my mother invented a short cut. Instead of making the dough from scratch, we use egg noodles. We still use prunes (because they're so good and not at all deserving of their reputation!), and we substituted cottage cheese for ricotta (because it looks better? mixes in better? Mom?). We mix it all together and pour the browned butter over the top, and it tastes a little different but just as delicious. Someday I will try to make the original version on my own, but this is at least a start.
So there! Despite my reputation for having the least exotic taste in food one could imagine, there is one thing I like that seems crazy and just ethnic enough to be gourmet. Finally!