Pierogies with Beer and Onion Sauce, and Crispy Broccoli

This one's pretty simple. I used potato-cheese pierogies, which you can pan fry straight out of the freezer until they are done.

For the sauce, I sautéed onions in butter and olive oil. I didn't go all the way to carmelization because I was feeling impatient. (To caramelize onions, cook them medium low for like 45 minutes). I added some Dijon mustard and beer (Sam Adams honey porter). I cooked out a bunch of the beer, and then tossed in the pierogies and served.

To make crispy broccoli, chop up broccoli into bite size pieces (I cut the stem part extra thin). Mix it in a bowl with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, some cayenne if you like that, and a little bit of lemon juice. Bake on a cookie sheet until they are shrunken and crisp. Oh yeah.

Pros:

- It's hard to mess up store bought pierogies and they taste great

- Crispy broccoli was delicious. Rachel thought there was too much cayenne. I agreed, but only sort of because it is girly to say that something is too spicy.

- Pretty cheap dinner. The whole thing was for sure under $10, closer to $5

Cons

- Potato-cheese pierogies are not healthy. Broccoli is healthy, but this broccoli had a lot of olive oil in it. Better than vegetable oil I guess.

- Whenever I cook with beer, I realize that I like the idea of cooking with beer more than the actual result. The hops in the beer made the sauce very bitter. Alton Brown did a show about cooking with wine and talked about how certain wines are good for cooking because they won't leave bitter flavors (in wine, they come from the tannins). Maybe he said something about beer too, but I forget. I guess if you cook with beer, try an ale rather than a lager. That is pure speculation; I haven't actually tried it.