Making interesting things for dinner

We are trying some new things.  Joshua graduated from BYU-I and is home for a while before leaving for Arizona where he will start at the College of Podiatry.  He wanted Slovakian food?  He has a classmate who is married to a young lady from that part of the world.  We are trying perogies, piroshkis and borsch.  Add to that, I have been trying to learn more Greek recipes.

Yesterday, I made a raisin-walnut artisan bread. It is part whole wheat.  It is not a sweet bread and does not have cinnamon.  However, it is really good.  I have the best loaf to my neighbor who is Greek and the bread meet the dietary requirements for the Greek Lenten season. 

Then I decided to try and make homemade phyllo (filo) dough.  There is not much to the dough.  It is making the phyllo that is difficult.  Wow.  Merriann and I sat at the table and carefully stretched the dough to get it as thin as we could.  Clearly, it is thicker than store bought but you can see through it.  A little goes a long way.  Well, I had the phyllo dough.  Now what?   I decided to try and make baklava.  I tried years ago with limited success.  So, I made a half cake pan size.  It looks OK.  It needs to soak overnight before we can try any.  It looks good.  

We have everything ready for the borsch, perogies and the piroshkis. Everything came out fine.  I have only had a homemade perogie and borscht once in my life.  My knowledge of what they should look like is based only on a memory from about 1984.  I was working at the Keams Canyon, PHS-IHS health center in Keams Canyon, AZ.  It is on the Hopi reservation.  It was winter and that means it was likely shortly after Christmas during a Christmas break while in was in graduate school.  I was there without Merriann and the family.  I became very ill over a weekend.  The other pharmacist brought over homemade borscht and perogies.  She was Polish and said she always thought borscht was great when you were feeling bad.  Kind of the chicken soup thing.  She made a white borscht (no beets). 

So, here is our attempt.  We put a little sour cream in the borscht. We made too much food.   It was very good.  Very red!  The top picture is a little out of focus.  The phone must have focused on the glass of water and the other things are fuzzy.  (need real camera).