Mom's Pierogi

 One of my favorite traditions at Christmas (and Easter) is making pierogi from my mom's recipe to have for dinner on Christmas Eve. For a long time it was a group effort with Dad cranking the dough, several of us filling the pierogi with cheese, and Mom boiling them and later pan frying them. After my parents were gone I often went up to Maine for the holidays and helped my sister, Tina and her family make them. For the last few years I haven't been able to travel up to Maine but I still want them for Christmas Eve dinner, so I make them myself. This year I challenged myself to try to sketch the process while I was making them. It wasn't too hard to do except for having to wash my hands constantly to keep the flour off the sketches. The step with the pasta machine was harder to do because I had to position my hands and sketch them individually. I sketched the whole thing in pencil while I was making them and then went back over the lines with ink and then added watercolors.