It was one of my favorite breakfasts, called lazy vareniki. Vareniki (similar to pirogi, but with thiner pastry) are Russian or Ukranian dumplings made with potato or ricotta cheese filling. So instead of making a dough, rolling it, cutting, preparing a filling, forming every dumpling you just put everything together in one bowl, mix it, divide into little pillows and boil. Lazy! And done within 5 minutes!

It should be done with tvorog, but if you don’t have it I found that farmers cheese is not a bad option for this dish (don’t use store bought ricotta, it’s too watery).

Ingredients (for 1 serving):

• Tvorog or farmer’s cheese – 1/4 lbs (100 gr)
• 1 egg
• Flour – 3 tbsp
• Pinch of salt

Directions:

• Place all the ingredients into a bowl and mix really well with spoon forming sticky dough
• Put the dough on well floured board, flour your hands too.
• It should be sticky, but workable, there is no need to kneed it, but you should be able to form about an inch wide log with your hands
• Cut the log into small pieces
• Put pot with water on medium to high heat, add 1 tsp of salt and bring to a boil. Do not reduce the heat!
• Place several dumplings into boiling water, don’t overcrowd the pot.
• Boil the dumplings for 2 minutes
• Remove from the pot with a skimmer spoon
• Garnish with melted butter or sour cream and sprinkle with sugar if you want to make it sweet
• Serve hot or warm