Ingredients:

1 bag of collar greens (16 oz)

3 quarts of water

2 pickles

1 carrot

1 small can of beats (sliced)

1 celery stock

handful of walnuts

3-4 tbs of mayonnaise

3 tbs of plain yogurt

salt and black pepper

Collard green salad

1. Put washed and cut greens into a large pot.

2. Pour water and let the greens boil for about 10-12 minutes, until soft, adding 1 tbs of salt during cooking.

3. After draining greens, let them cool down.

4. In the mean time wash celery and peel carrot, slice them as well as pickles.

5. Add all vegetables to greens, add black pepper (1 tea-spoon) and mix mayonnaise and yogurt in. Decorate the salad with walnuts.

Yummy and healthy

Is the Polish cooking and diet good for your health?

Yes, if and only if you make changes to the ingredients when needed and choose the right food. Do not buy low quality meat (most have msg from the deli),  pickles made with a lot of white vinegar (instead of horseradish and garlic and salt), and brand X pierogi are not as good if you make your own with quality flour, even whole grain and intresting filling like blueberries or cabbage (not together of course). Read the label if you are buying packaged food and improvise if you are making it yourself.

If you live in Poland shop at the farmers market and eat the food babcia and twoja matka gives your to take home from the countryside, rather than those cheap Chinese noodels at Tesco.

These are pickle not make with white vinegar but rather salt (natural from ancient Wieliczka seas), garlic and herbs. It is sitting on my kitchen take and ready for Obiad (dinner).

For example, you can also modify any traditional Polish recipe to be healthier. Lets say if you are frying dumplings, instead of using a polyunsaturated fat, use olive oil. If you use your creativity, any dish can be better for you, there are no rule in the kitchen.

Vegetarianism in Poland

Believe it or not this cold dark climate does have people who do not eat meat.  I mean when you are freezing in a snow storm, waiting at a Warsaw tram stop, you do not think of eating a grape sandwich are you?  Well you might be surpised you can survive in Poland as a vegetarian. The ones I meet do it for ethical reasons, not health but look much younger than their carnerious counterparts.

I know a number of Polish vegetarians. In fact I know this one guy who is a world traveler and owns a couple of Vegetarian restaurants in Krakow (called Vega bar). He travels the world. I asked him does he try different types of vegetarian cooking he goes to such exotic places? He said no. I replied ‘what’? He only eats Polish vegetarian food no matter where he is because he does not want to waste a meal as he knows Polish cooking is the best. I find it hard to argue.

Poland is the land of organic vegetables. You could eat local farm grown cabbage, onions, garlic, carrots until you are healed and skinny. You can eat fresh berries, and fruits from the forests until you pop. There is no way you can convince me that you can not live on a healthy diet in Poland.

One more thing, maybe you want to skip the bar mleczny (milk bar which has traditional but often low quality food). Some are good but some have a lot of bigos that seems to have been around since the start of Solaridarity.

Do Polish people live long and how can you?

I am Polish and American and I think it might surprise you that life expectancies in the two countries are about the same, a difference by only a few months, but for different reasons. American spend a lot on health care but eat too much. Poles eat less, most food is non GMO, spend less on health care but smoke, they are less aware about other health concerns like enviromental toxins(this is changing) and use a lot of cooking with vegetable oils as opposed to more stable monounsaturated fats.

They do not eat too much junk food or go to fast food place, and rarely eat at resturants. Home cooking is the best and yes every Polish woman cooks without a question. Poles also walk everywhere and take a lot more vacations. They use herbal teas and natural healing methods more.

However, when it comes to diet I think Poles have a healthier diet. Not by virtue of what ingredients are found in their Polish recipes but rather they eat less. The less you eat the healthier you are. That is a scientific fact.

So anyone that tells me the Polish diet is unhealthy I think they are misinformed about nutrition.
There are many known cases of people losing weight on any diet. To some extent it does not matter what you eat but how much you eat. What you eat matters only when it comes to health and how you feel.

For example, there was a nutritionist who lost 50 lbs on a junk food diet, or the guy who ate at Subways for a year and lost even more.

How to eat for longevity with Polish food

Therefore, we can conclude that any diet can lead to weight loss but how many taste good and are good for you? That is, where Polish cooking comes in.

• Just eat moderate portions or less is more.
• Focus on the  good things like Polish chicken,  borsch or barely soup, cabbage salads, leak and carrot type salads, fish from Poland like herring, pickles, yogurt .
• Drink lots of carrot juice that is readily available in every shop in Poland.
• Eat fruit like berries that grow everywhere in Poland. Blackberries and blueberries are the best. Also consider wild rose and black currant are in every market and cookbook. These are rich in anti-oxidants, more than almost any other food. You can heal your body with these alone. Make a smoothie with these every night and you will see a boast in the way you feel.
• Polish flaxseed oil in its raw state is great on salads.
• Snack on things like sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

What is your impression of Polish cooking and how do you cook it? Ask any questions if you want to know how Poles really shop at the grocery store and eat.

When I young there were always a few traditional Polish foods that I was leery of. Polish blood sausage was not one of them. Why? I did not know it by its English name ‘blood sausage’.  My parents would just serve them up with onions and butter and under the Polish name Kiszka. I loved it.

If I knew as a kid, how you make blood sausage there is no way I would have eaten it. What Kiszka is a mix of Kasha or buckwheat (or barely) and pig’s blood. Pig intestines are used as casing. Jewish Kiszka is uses kosher beef intestine stuffed with matzo meal. The Germans have something similar and there is also blood pudding, which does not sound too good to me.

There are different ways that Kiszka is prepared, including spices added to the sausage, such as paprika.

It sounds disguising but it is not only delicious but very healthy. Buckwheat, which is technically not a grain but a fruit, has a lot of Rutin.  Vitamin P or rutin is a flavonoid good for capillary permeability. Blood has a lot of nutrients. It serves as the gravy in a lot of meat dishes but here is the main flavor in addition to spices. But the reality is most of this is Buckwheat and the pork is more the flavoring. That is why the price is pretty cheap compare to kielbasa or ham.

Kiszka I bought at the local market. There are many people who make it at home and sell it in Poland.

The way how to prepare Kaszanka is pretty wide open but here is how I do it..

How to cook blood sausage

• Onions are the typical main ingredient that you add. Chop the onions and garlic and butter. The objective is to make the Kiszka crispy. Do not overwhelm it with too much Onions.  This should just accent the
• Pepper is a secondary ingredient. I do not add salt as pork has salt anyway, but you can add this.
• Cook it in a pan, I like a black iron skillet as it tastes the best and over a gas stove, but you have to work with what you have. I cook it medium, not high heat. As it cooks I use a fork and break it up.

Cooked Polish blood sausage, it comes apart as you cook it.

Eastern European food is great. I grew up on in the USA and when I moved to Poland I thought it was even better. On any day, no matter where I am I can walk outside my house and get authentic traditional Polish cooking, and it is very cheap also. I think I paid for the above blood sausages about $1.30 total, maybe not even that.  It is about 11 Polish złoty per kilogram. That comes out to about 1.50 a pound.  Good Polish ham here in Krakow will cost 2 or 3 times that price per kilogram. I have no idea how much it would cost in the states but I do know, that when I am in the USA I can not find food that tastes as good as the food in Poland, even at the Polish shops. Sorry but its true, and I am an American. I guess has to do with the Polish method of farming and the soil and the freshness.

Let me know about your thoughts about Polish blood sausage or Kiszka or Kaszanka. There is also a bloodless version of this sausage and I am sure there is a vegetarian version also, somehow.

Polish herbs for cooking and healing

I am an American living in Krakow, Poland and the place I go is the Benedictine shops for herbs.  There are many good companies but for value I think these monks make the best raw herbs for cooking.  You can transform a normal meal into something divine.  The are organically grown and almost have a spiritual quality to them because they the proceeds go to help the monks do their work.

Some people argue that for a bag of basil, for example, is expensive in their shop. It cost about 8 pln but the bag is much bigger than the normal Polish herbs and look and smell better.

Compare these herbs. The first one below might only cost you 2 pln but you get much less then the benedictine herbs. They are herbs of province.

Polish cooking herbs from a normal shop

Now lets look at some Polish spices and herbs from the monks in Krakow. These are are to spice up your salad life.

Polish herbs for cooking from the monks

Here is an example of their basil, I think my favorite cooking herb after garlic of course.

Polish herbs - Basil

If you have medical issues, have you ever considered herbs?  I think they are pretty effective. But it takes about 1 month to start to see the effect for every month you have a condition. So if you have had hypertension for 3 years it will take 6 months of herbs before you start to see results.

My favorite herb for relaxing is chamomile. They also have herbal coffee with no caffeine and oils for aromatherapy and a lot more.

Next time you are in Poland or if you are an expat and live here like me try the Monk’s herbs from Poland. Here is their website  www.benedicite.pl/ or you can find their shops around Kraków like on Krakowska street in Kazimierz.

These Pancakes from Poland of their quite different and then American pancakes.  In fact then I first saw them I did not know what they were. American flat cakes use baking soda.  Polish pancakes are rather thin and flat without baking soda.  If you know what a French crepe is then this is what a Polish pancake looks like, you could even call these European pancakes.

Other then being rather thin, there are a few more differences in style.  For example, with Polish pancakes and instead of putting jam and jelly and syrup on top of them as we do in America, you actually wrap things like cheese or sweet gooey things inside.  Therefore, beside the name pancakes or the basic shape of a round disk they do not have much in common with the Pancakes in the USA.

I personally it like farmers cheese in Polish pancakes, however, if Polish pancakes have jam in them and they are on the table a usually eat them.

Sweet Polish Pancakes

You can also use sour milk and pieces of apple.

Polish pancakes for dessert

In Poland maple syrup is not common.  In fact, we actually have pine syrup here  not maple and it certainly does not go on pancakes,  it is more used as a medicine for people with colds.

What is our syrup replacement in Poland for pancakes, I would say honey.  Honey and Poland is everywhere.  I never knew there were so many different types of honey.  Each with a different taste and a different property.  If you want you can put honey on your Polish pancakes.

In restaurants people usually put powdered sugar or confectionery sugar on their polish pancakes.

Here is another interesting fact about Polish flat cakes, people in Poland usually eat them with their main meal in the afternoon, not for breakfast as an America.

Polish pancakes like sandwiches

Polish pancakes are actually very versatile.  The inside can be cabbage, meat, yellow cheese, or anything you can imagine.  They can function almost like tortilla.  What Polish people do is they might put meat and cheese inside the pancakes and then fried with bread crumbs and eggs and it makes croissant.

With the meat version you can also have with mushrooms. These are often served with borscht. Basically these are European sandwiches which are great to have when you’re on the go.

Pancakes from Poland

In summary:

• Polish pancakes are a main meal food.
• Polish pancakes function as a dessert food or a sandwich type food.

If you’re looking for recipes with Polish pancakes be the sweet type or the sandwich type I will put some on my recipe site. If you subscribe via rss you will see these recipes eventually.  I love cooking and live in Poland so this is a great chance to share with people Polish recipes.

However, I also I ask you to share, if you have any recipes you can share Polish pancakes or what ever please leave a comment as I would be very interested.

Mexican pierogies quick version

This is simple: dough, filling and cooking. Just three steps to prepare.

Mexican pierogies dough

• Flour
• Water
• Butter on your hands

Make the pierogi dough like normal.  Do not feel you need to bring this down to a science. I simply spread some flower out, I mix whole wheat and white flower but in this case you can add corn.

I butter my hands really good and add water and work the dough.  This is great exercises for your hands.

After I work it I use a rolling pin and flatten and use a glass to make perfect round pierogi dough covers.

Mexican pierogies filling

This is the signature part of the Mexican pierogies.

• Taco meat
• Corn
• Onions
• Salsa (on top)

Fry these up in a pan. I put sour cream on them.  Below is a better detailed real version rather than Mark’s lazy mans Mexican pierogi   the bachelor

Mexican pierogi

Real recipe for Mexican pierogies

Here is the longer version which is more detailed.

Dough for the dumplings ingredients:

200 g corn flour

250 g wheaten flour

150 g lard or I use butter, not margarine which I think is unhealthy

1 table spoon of baking powder

2 eggs

2-3 spoons of water or milk

vegetable oil for frying

Filling for the dumplings ingredients:

250 g boiled minced beef

2 onions

2-3 cloves of garlic

1 green pepper

7 black olives without pits

2 table spoons of raisins

2 hard boiled eggs

3 chili peppers

half a tea spoon of Oregano and marjoram

one tablespoon of  lard (butter or olive oil).

salt

Working the dough

Now I will tell you how to make the dough.  You must mix the flour and baking soda.

Next sift the flour, there in cut the butter or lard into the flour and add salt eggs and water. then knead the dough with your hands really were due to make it like some exercise.

Next wrap it with foil or put it in a bowl and put it in the fridge for two hours.

Frying the filling for perogi

Now we are making the filling.

Chop the onion, pepper, garlic and saute it with olive oil.
Then add meat and herbs, continue to mix and saute it.

Boil water ad add raisins until the raisins become fat.

Add chili and cut the olives.

Boil the eggs and cut them up and add this all to the mix.  I use olive oil really to do the frying and not a lot.  Just very light so it is not too heavy.

Add salt

Then mixing it all together and fill it.

Add filling to the dough to the perogi

Add it in the traditional way and pinch the pierogi closed.

Again in a pan fry it lightly.  Some people boil but with Mexican dumplings frying in a pan with light olive oil is the best.

It is ready to serve.

This is a quick post is anyone has any more ideas about how to make Polish dumplings Mexican style let me know.  However, the above recipe will work.

Here is a simple way to make milk from Almonds:

Take a handful of almonds and place them in water over night to soak.You do not actually have to do this, however, it softens them up a bit. How much water you can experiment with.  I soak about one handful in 2 cups of water. The next day I add about five cups more.  Some people like it thicker or thinner almond milk.  You will have to play around with it to your taste.

Add honey, vanilla, in a blender and mix it. I do not strain it but most people use a cloth or strainer to take out the Almond paste. The proportions of honey and vanilla, are to taste. I sometimes add coconut milk.

The main thing is Almonds have lots of magnesium and even b17  laetrile which is unproven anti cancer vitamin.  There is no way raw Almond milk can be too unhealthy for you. Many people who are allergic to soy drink this.

One note of caution according to wiki almonds that are bitter combined with water releases cyanide.

I tried to give it to my little daughter to replace her normal milk and she drank a little but preferred her formula or hen goats milk to Almond milk. She is 15 months so do not worry she is not anything like 3 months.

There is nothing more to say about Almond milk it is very easy to make and one handful of almonds will yield a quart of almond milk.

Please let me know if you have any further ideas about almond milk or anything to add.

One of the many reasons I like making Polish pierogies is it is good for me.  Let me explain, I am a computer programmer geek.  I work for very long hours, and I am either staring it at a computer screen, or typing on my blogs. By the end of the day my eyes and hands are very tired.  By the end of the week, I am exhausted .

On Sundays I love to spend the day with my family.  I love Sundays.   We often rent movies, take long walks along the Vistula river here in Krakow, Poland, and sometimes I make pierogies.

How I discovered Pierogi healing

Let me tell you the rest of the story, one day my wife and I had a disagreement over how long it would take to make pierogies.  We live in Poland, and she is from the Polish countryside, and she knows what it takes to make a good dumpling.

I am an American, and believe I can do it any thing with ease.  I said I can make pierogies  in fifteen minutes.  Needless to say she won and I lost. it took me a full three hours to make my first batch of pierogies. I was covered in dough and flour .

Although I was completely defeated, there was a silver lining.  And that was, I had a great time.  I  was listening to classical music, in a warm kitchen with my family,  while I was working the dough.  Most important I was off the computer.  And after I finished my hands felt great.  My overworked hands and eyes from being on the computer all week felt refreshed.

I think working the pierogi dough for so long actually helped my hands that are normally sore from being on the computer all day.

I can now make pierogies in under.  I love to experiment and do not make just traditional Polish or Ukrainian pierogies. I make Mexican, tropical and my own styles of pierogies.  But really if you have every made a batch of peirogies it can be great exercises and requires a lot of physical strength when you work the dough.

Pierogi diet

Further although it seems like this post is on the lighter side, there is some truth to what I write.  Working pierogi dough does help your hands if you are typing too much or sitting on your butt all day at work. This is why I called this post Pierogi healing.  I have thought of taking it a step further and creating a Polish pierogi diet for weight loss or a herbal pierogi for healing.

Since I am both Polish and Ukrainian but born in the USA and live in Poland, I take pride in pierogies and I think just like Mediterraneans have popularized their food, I could popularizes pierogies as a healthy healing diet food as well as fun to make.

One of these days I have to put all my pierogi inventions and recipes and healing herbs in a book.

The purpose of this post is to tell give you a quick review of Mrs t’s pierogies. Why do I know anything about Polish pierogi? The reason is I am an American but I am also Polish, I live in Krakow, Poland.  And as you can guess, I love to make and eat Polish pierogies, and yes I am a guy.

There is nothing wrong with this company ethically or anything, it was started as a family run food company. But there is nothing exceptional about the nutritional value or taste. It is a very processed food with processed cheese and white flour.  They use vegetable oil, I do not use oil in my Polish dumplings but rather maybe  a little olive oil. You are not going to lose weight or get healthy living on these Polish dumplings.

Mrs. T’s Pierogies are what you buy when you are in the USA and are too lazy to make your own.  I use to love them, as they were the closest I could get to Polish cooking in the States without having to go to a Polish store.  They are sold in most stores.  Therefore, I am not going to say anything bad about the.

However, when you compare Mrs. T’s Pierogies to homemade, there is no comparison.  Homemade is 100 times better than a Mrs. T Pierogi. I do not think I could eat them anymore.  However, when I was in a pinch I would pick them up a store.

Advantages of homemade compared to Mrs T’s pierogies

• When you make the dough its great exercises for your hands, especially if you use the computer a lot.
• You can make exotic types, like apple, banana and cinnamon or even more wild types of Polish pierogi.  I make dumplings with herbs like basil or oregano.  Your only limited to how high your imagination can fly.
• They are fresh not frozen. No comparison. Mrs. T’s is a little like fast food compared to Polish cuisine, not bad but not fresh and does not make you feel light when you eat them.
• It is cheaper.
• It is fun to make pierogies
• Much healthier – I use real fresh fruit and cheese. You can even use whole wheat flour or some other variation.  You can make it low fat or use olive oil.

The advantages of Mrs. T’s Pierogies

• Fast and convenient pierogies if you are a working person
• It is good that the company brings a little Polish culture to mainstream American, even if it is Polish cooking.

Mrs. T’s Pierogies rating

Mrs. T's Pierogies do not look like this

I wold give them three stars.  However, this depends if you like in the USA or Poland.  After living in Poland I think they are more like two stars.  But for Americans I will maintain a four star out of five rating.  They have many different types, mostly cheese and potato based pierogies. My favorate pierogies are fruit and meat based pierogies as well as exotic non tradictional Polish cooking pierogies. And this is something Mrs. T’s Pierogies do not have.

The fruit that I pick here in Poland not typically found in the US.

Mini strawberries – These are strawberries the size of your half the size of a pea.  They are way better than huge strawberries grown on American business farms devoid of taste and sprayed with everything you can not image.

Wild roses – The fruit from roses are very healthy, they are every where in Poland I love jam made from them.

Black and read current – has life extension qualities, very popular in the drinks here a very strong taste.

Wild blueberries – not round like american blueberries, but truly wild blueberries, irregular or football shaped.

Every variety of plums

Gooseberries – green cherry size fruit can be bitter can be sweet, good for your nervous system.

Oranges once grew in Poland about 500 years ago when the temperature was warmer as did apricots.  Its interesting to note in Ukraine next door apricots  still do in the southern region of Crimea.

Of course in Poland you find fruit like apples, pears, grapes and all the other things you have in the US.

But my point is there are many wild fruits that grow in Poland I have never seen in the US and certainly can not be found on the super market shelves.

Wild or organic fruit is everywhere in Poland

In fact a lot of the fruit here sold in the market is home grown or picked wild all of it in season. Since more than 20 of the Polish population grows something on a local farm most everything is organic.    I know its hard to believe but its true.  When I go to the village to visit my relatives always I come back with stocks of organic everything, no GMO, wild fruits and other things.