You guys…do you know what today is?? …*BESIDES* Monday???? It’s NATIONAL PIEROGY DAY! Halle-friggin-lujah. You guys know what pierogies are by now, I’m sure – and if you don’t, I’m genuinely concerned for the life you’ve lived up to now. But fear now – your world is about to be rocked with the cutest lil’ cheese-and-potato-filled masterpieces on the planet, courtesy of Mrs. T’s Pierogies.
One night last week, J + I hopped into the city for a fun little date night out, to celebrate this v important national holiday in advance with our friends at Mac Mart – an absurdly cool food-truck-turned-restaurant in Rittenhouse Square, that has this new Macarogies & Cheese recipe in honor of the day. First off, let me take a hot sec to talk about Mac Mart – here I had an actual gourmet mac n’ cheesery in my backyard. What the heck was I doing with my life? Their concoctions are nothing short of mac-nificent (see what did there? 😉 ), loaded with everything from jalapeno oil to a homemade secret buttermilk ranch sauce (um, yum). For this collaboration, they teamed up with Mrs. T’s to change things up a bit, substituting their city-famous mac for world-famous pierogies. and the result was worthy of heart eyes. (And you can swing by Mac Mart all October long to order it there!)
We loveloveloved the dish so much, we wanted to give it a go at recreating in the Gwynn casa. (And a whopping 97% of ya said on Instastories that you wanted to see it made at-home – not sure who the 3% party poopers are among us, but HERE WE GO 😉 ). Granted…y’all know I’m no Martha Stewart up in here. I’m #blessed with a hubby who knows his way around the kitchen, but luckily enough, this recipe is easy peasy and I KNOW you can whip it up too, regardless of skill level.
INGREDIENTS:
Pierogies:
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 box Mrs. T’s Four Cheese Medley Pierogies or Mini Cheddar seasoned with Bacon
Cheese Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup shredded Monteray Jack cheese
Sauteed Caramelized Onions:
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large sweet onion, halved + thinly sliced
Toppings:
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
French-fried onions
Cooked crumbled bacon
RECIPE:
- In medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour until mixture is thickened. Gradually beat in milk, stirring until mixture is smooth and comes to a boil. Remove from heat. Gradually whisk in Parmesan, Romano, mozzarella, and Monteray jack cheese. Keep warm.
- In small skillet over medium-high heat, melt butter and oil. Add sliced onions. Cook about 10 minutes until onions are golden and caramelized, stirring occasionally. Remove onions from pan.
- In same skillet over medium heat, heat butter and oil. Saute frozen pierogies until golden brown, turning once, about 8 minutes on each side.
- To serve, spoon pierogies into shallow serving dish. Top with cheese sauce, caramelized onions, and shredded cheese (yum!). Sprinkle with French-fried onions + crumbled bacon.
And because a cozy date night in is nothing without some solid *jams* – here’s our current couple’s playlist that we crank housewide. Use as you wish. 🙂
OUR PLAYLIST:
We’ve been suuuuuuper intentional about date nights lately justbecause it’s important, yo! But also because we’re both I think painfully aware of how much things will change (not bad change – just big change!) with a baby in the house, and we’re soaking up every second of it being justus time while we can.
We’re also maaaaaajor homebodies. Give us a bottle of wine and sweatpants and we’re hella happy campers – heck, we’re the HAPPIEST of campers. 🙂 We’ve never been the types to need to go all out and get out to have a good time. But on the flip side, that means we *do* need to have a few ground rules in place for cozy date nights in, so that they still feel like date night and not any other Tuesday. 😉
- Come with conversation. If we know we have a cozy date night in ahead, we both lay off the texting during the day in anticipation of what’s to come, and save some fun tidbits to share while we’re prepping dinner together (and if you want some more serious topics to talk about, check out this post).
- Always try. Even if you’re in sweatpants…you’ve still gotta look cute. So like, clean sweatpants. Clean hair (anyone else rock the 3-day-hair bun like it’s their job when in sweats???). Clean shave. Spritz of something that smells good. Heck, I might even put on MAKEUP. The world is our oyster. Actually…the couch is our oyster tonight. And you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll still be a *romantic* oyster at that. 😉
- Go phone-free. We’ve both got Quality Time in our top two love languages, so that means taking a time out on tech for a hot sec to truly just ~be~ together. It makes such a big difference. I used to always post an Instagram around 10 pm at night – until I realized that was majorly cutting into our us time, and was completely unnecessary + fixable! So once I’ve got my last post up by 6 pm-ish, we’ve got our phones up and away where there’s zero scroll temptation.
- Teamwork makes the dream work. We’re a total team household. J knows I loathe doing dishes, so he often steps up to that plate – I’m totally A-OK tackling laundry all day long, so I can handle that no problemo. Same goes for date night – we try to make it a team effort in the kitchen (sans dishes – that’s J’s job 😉 ), and tag team tidying up the general space afterwards, too, before bedtime, so that we can wake up the next day feeling refreshed + relaxed.
What’s your favorite way to do a cozy date night in? Have you tried Mrs. T’s pierogies before?
And are you celebrating National Pierogy Day today???? Pleasepleaseplease tell me you’re on your way to the grocery store to grab a box from the freezer aisle and make it happen. #WorthIt 😉
I know I’ve shared 5 of my personal favorite pierogy recipes before, but I’ve also got my eye on their Pad Thai Mini Pierogies the next time we’re craving Thai in a gif – and I think these little Pierogy Pizzas would be perfect for the next game night we host! Thoughts???
*Thanks to Mrs. T’s Pierogies, a brand I lovelovelove, for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions + thoughts presented are entirely my own. Thank YOU for supporting the brands that support Coming Up Roses!
