Instant Pot bread dough for pyrizhky – baked pyrohy

Pyrizhky were one of my grandfather’s favourites.  He loved the portability of these tiny buns with cheese, potato, onion and dill filling. And, he’d advise me to keep a few in my pockets to have a snack at hand later.  Sound advice.

This recipe will take you from the dough through filling then shaping and baking.  These are delicious – even better with a creamy dill sauce poured over top. Pyrizhky freeze well. The Instant Pot makes the dough rising more reliable but admittedly not faster.

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Instant Pot farm cheese and potato filling for varenyky or pyzirhky

Springing forward, it’s time to start making more spring and Easter foods.  Here’s a great filling for varenyky or pyrizhky.  Pyrizhky? It’s a bread-based dumpling-bun.

This recipe uses the easy dry curd cottage cheese I made.  The filling is full of spring green onions and fresh dill.

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Instant Pot Ukrainian Farm Cheese – Dry Curd Cottage Cheese

It’s easy to make your own dry curd cottage cheese.  This recipe makes a cottage cheese with small curd – perfect for nalysnyky (Ukrainian cheese crepes) or Easter cheese babka.  My homemade Instant Pot dry curd cottage cheese is destined for perishke (or pyrizhky, basically a bread-based baked perohe or pyrogy)

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Instant Pot Sour Cabbage Rolls – Holubtsi

Yet another variant of holubchi (holubtsi, golubchi, golubtsi, Голубцы).  There are as many ways to spell cabbage rolls as there are to make them.  These are vegetarian-vegan – it’s what I made for Christmas Eve.  If you’re looking for meat then check out my recipe for Instant Pot Buckwheat and Pork Cabbage Rolls

This uses sour cabbage which you can either spend a few weeks making in a barrel – or buy a sour cabbage head at a grocery store.

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Instant Pot Ukrainian Compote – Stewed fruit

With all of the hectic activity around the holidays, it’s nice to have something that’s super easy.  On Christmas Eve, a fruit compote (or stewed fruit) made with dried fruit is a traditional end to the meal.  The Instant Pot makes the dish amazingly easy and much less time consuming than soaking the fruit overnight.

I use prunes, dried apricots, dried apple rings and raisins.  But, you can use any combination of dried fruits.

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Baba’s best perohe-varenyky-pyrogy dough

What would make a woman who made pyrogy (peroghies, perohe, varenyky, and so on) change the recipe that she had used for over fifty years?  Here it is – the best dough recipe ever.  Or at least my baba thought so.

This is a soft dough that’s easy to roll out and shape.  It’s just the right ratio of everything – and a cup of butter or margarine can’t hurt.  The dough doesn’t use the Instant Pot but the fillings will.

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Pampushky – Ukrainian Donuts with poppy seed and raisin filling

Pampushky are a traditional Christmas dessert. Starting with a bread dough, they are deliciously filled with poppy seeds and dried fruit and deep fried.  My grandmother used to make prune pampushky.   But, here I’m making poppy seed and raisin filling.

It’s a recipe that only uses the Instant Pot for the rising for the yeast dough.  You can also put the dough in a warm place – like an oven.  But, this is not a quick recipe.

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Instant Pot Pidpenky – Dried Mushrooms with Gravy

This traditional recipe works with any kind of dried mushrooms – morels, cepes, or shiitake.  And, using the Instant Pot saves more than an entire day of soaking time.  If you want to forgo even that hydration time, use fresh mushrooms like cremini.

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Instant Pot Braised Red Cabbage

For Christmas Eve, I like to make braised red cabbage.  It’s not a Ukrainian recipe – but what Ukrainian doesn’t like cabbage?  (Ukrainians are allowed to not like cabbage)

This braised red cabbage is colourful and easy to make ahead of time.  Just refrigerate and reheat when you’re ready to serve it.

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Instant Pot Traditional Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is one of those things that’s special for everyone.  This is the way that my baba would serve her chicken noodle soup.  First off, she made her own noodles from scratch.  But, you can get great egg noodles that have that rustic feel at the store.

The key is that she served the noodles separately from the soup.  Everyone could add that they wanted at the table.  Plus, serving cold noodles cooled down the soup for kids.

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