Fall Cooking: Koldunai

Sometimes, especially on chilly, rainy, fall evenings, you just need some Dunes. Koldunai, (or "dunes" as we affectionately call them) are Lithuanian dumplings. Just as gyoza, ravioli, pierogi, and pelmeni fill their cultural comfort food duty, dunes fill our Lithuanian bellies to the point of utter-contentment.

Yesterday, Didz was craving dunes... and even though it's a tremendous amount of work, the craving was too much to resist.

We mixed our dough and rolled it out (not an easy feat without a proper rolling pin!), prepared the meat, and assembled our little dunes, one by one....

Once we got going, it went a lot faster than I expected (as my old roommate Vanessa used to say, "teamwork makes the dream work!")... And soon enough we were boiling them up, and sitting down to feast. They're typically served with sauteed onions and bacon bits, with a hearty dollop of sour cream (or in our case, greek yogurt). 

While they weren't as good as Mociute (grandma) used to make, they were pretty darn awesome, and I'm sure she'd be happy to know we've kept the dune making tradition alive in our family.