In one of Stephen’s many lunchtime thrift store pursuits, he acquired me a Crock Pot. This appliance has never existed in my home nor in my parents’ home. It is a foreign object to me. It sat in the cupboard for about two months before I finally decided to do something with it.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are the most boring cut of meat. I don’t like cooking them because usually I create boring meals.

So I made pulled chicken sandwiches. I let the chicken cook alllllll day and shredded it up and cooked it for even longer. It turned out pretty well, except my homemade BBQ sauce tasted like sweet mutant tomato paste, so I cheated and added some Sweet Baby Ray’s and liquid smoke and everything balanced out.

The buns were a little dense, but I think it’s because the recipe I used called for instant rise yeast and I only had regular yeast so I should have proofed it. I am not including the recipe for the buns because I only did a Google search and picked the first recipe I found. I’d try a different one next time. I just really didn’t feel like going to the store just for hamburger buns.

Ingredients:
3-4 chicken breasts, mostly thawed
1 tiny can of tomato paste
2/3 of the tiny can of water
1/2 onion, chopped
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper
some dried basil
some dried thyme
1/4 cup BBQ sauce
1 tsp. liquid smoke

Directions:
Place the chicken on the bottom of the crock pot. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and add to the crock pot. Set crock pot to low for four or five hours. Shred up the chicken with a fork and cook another two hours.  Scoop on to a bun and enjoy.

Hello, my name is Natasha and I’m addicted to dumplings. I’ve gone on a bit of a bender since last Friday when I found out we have a new Russian dumpling restaurant downtown. I have eaten some sort of dumpling every day but Monday.

Last night, Kelly and I made our own. I made meat-filled dumplings, and she made potato-filled perogies. What I loved about her perogies is she fried them up in butter after boiling them. Yum yum!

In the spirit of all things dumpling, I thought I’d better post my recipe for the Russian kind. I’m sure Russians don’t use cilantro, but I despise dill and cilantro is what the restaurants here and in Juneau use anyway.

Makes about 30 dumplings

Ingredients for the dough:
1/4 cup warm water
1 egg
flour

Ingredients for the meat filling:
1/4 onion, chopped very finely
olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1/2 lb. ground beef
salt and pepper

For the topping:
Butter
Curry powder
Siracha sauce (I don’t know the actual name, cause we all just call it cock sauce)
Fresh cilantro
Sour cream

Directions:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg and water. Incorporate flour till you have a soft, stretchy dough that isn’t sticky to the touch. Knead on a floured surface for a couple of minutes, incorporating flour if it’s still too sticky. Place the dough back in the bowl and cover for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, coat a small frying pan with olive oil and turn to med-high heat. Add the onions and the curry and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic and cook till onions are fragrant and translucent, about another 3 minutes. Let this cool off the stove while you combine the beef, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Once onions are mostly cooled, add to the beef and combine well.

Roll out the dough till it’s thin like pasta dough. Using a biscuit cutter or the edge of a glass, cut circles out of the dough. Reuse the scraps as much as you can.

Add about a teaspoon of filling to each circle and fold it in half so it looks like a half moon. Crimp closed. The dough should be sticky enough to stay closed on its own without additional moisture.

Set each finished pelmeni on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

From here you could either boil the dumplings right away or place them in the freezer for later. If you freeze them, make sure to freeze them on the baking sheet before putting them in a ziploc bag or container. Otherwise they will stick together.

To prepare, bring a big pot of salted water to a boil. Add the dumplings and return to a boil. Cook until dumplings float — about 5 minutes.

Use a slotted spoon to remove dumplings and place them in bowls. Top with butter, curry powder, cock sauce, cilantro and sour cream. Enjoy!

Back in the day when Stephen and I lived in the heart of downtown Anchorage, our favorite late-night restaurant was the Lucky Monkey on the corner of 5th Avenue and C Street. Their menu was limited. They served pelmeni, or Russian dumplings. For about $6 you’d get a bowlful topped with curry powder, sriracha sauce, cilantro and sour cream. They were THE BEST. And then they closed down. It was a sad day for downtown Anchorage.

Fast forward five years. A friend and I are cruising the downtown scene at 2 a.m. and I smell them — the scent of butter and curry and meat. I follow the sound of Euro techno and there it was: Nane’s Pelmeni. I dashed in and five minutes later I was mowing down on pure happiness. They taste just as I remembered. At $8 a bowl, it’s enough to shake that drunken edge and fill you up after a night of rocking the dance floor.

Nane’s serves meat pelmeni and potato filled ones. This morning I was craving them yet again, so I used my near mother-in-law’s dough recipe and made my own potato perogies.  They were splendid.

And here’s how I made them.

Serves two hungry people

For the dough:
1/4 cup warm water
1 egg
flour

For the filling:
1/2 cup mashed potatoes
1/4 cup grated parmesan
pepper
1 tsp. fresh chopped chives (optional)

Directions:
In a bowl whisk together the water and egg. Start adding flour till a kneadable dough forms — I think I used about a cup. Remove dough from bowl and knead for a few minutes until it’s soft but not sticky. Add more flour if needed. Form into a ball and place back in the bowl. Cover and let rest for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix together the filling ingredients. You can get creative with this. You could use cheddar and bacon bits. I used two frozen hash brown patties because I didn’t have any potatoes. I fried them up and then broke them apart with forks in a bowl. The filling should hold together when you form it into a small ball.

Fill a large pot with salted water and get it boiling while you’re making the perogies. Turn it to low if it boils before you’re done.

When the dough is done resting, roll it on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin till it’s the thickness of a noodle (so, pretty thin). With a large biscuit cutter or the edge of a glass, start cutting out circles from the dough. Fill each circle with about a teaspoon of filling. Fold the dough over so it looks like a half moon and pinch the edges all around. The dough should be sticky enough to stay together when you press the edges hard.

When you run out of circle space, ball up the dough again and roll it out. Make more perogies. Save them on a tray while you’re making them.

Place all the dumplings in the boiling water and stir gently. Turn heat to medium so it doesn’t boil so hard that it tears apart the dumplings. Boil for about 4 minutes. They should all be floating before you take them out of the water.

Use a large slotted spoon to remove the dumplings and place them in a bowls. Top with butter and a little salt.

I am currently lying on my couch completely full and satisfied. I have finally learned how to grill a steak! Tonight I grilled steak and made salt-encrusted baked potatoes (fully loaded with homegrown chives) and I even was able to serve a small salad with greens from our very own garden! Here’s what I made and how I made it:

Ingredients:
2 thick steaks (I got the pre-peppered kind from the store)
2 baking potatoes
Baby salad greens
white of one egg
kosher salt
pepper
olive oil
1/4 lemon
2 strips of bacon
pickled jalapeños
shredded cheddar cheese
chives or green onions
sour cream
butter

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Poke your potatoes all over with a fork. Coat them with egg white and cover them all over with kosher salt. Place in a baking pan and bake for one hour. Meanwhile, chop up your bacon and fry over medium-low heat until crispy. Drain on a paper towel.

When there is 20 minutes left on the potatoes, heat up your grill so it’s around 600 degrees, or super hot. When there is 10 minutes left on the potatoes, put the meat on the grill. Grill four minutes on each side, then remove from grill and cover with foil.

When the potatoes are done cut a slit down the middle and puff them up using potholders. Add the butter, cheese, jalapeños, bacon bits, sour cream and top with chives.

Drizzle your greens with olive oil and then squeeze a wedge of lemon over them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Serve with a glass of Mariette Old Vine Red and then go into a meat coma.