Canada's Parliament has resumed today after being "prorogued" since December 10th, 2009. Very basically, a prorogue is a form of enforced interruption of normal Parliamentary activities. Politically, calling for a prorogue can be a controversial thing to do. For the rest of us, this unusual act makes us hungry for perogies. This might help:
THE SHYLUK PEROGIE RECIPE:
Perogies are little dumplings made out of dough filled with cheese, potatoes, fruit, or berries. They are boiled and then may be fried afterwards. This is my family recipe (minus a couple of secrets).
DOUGH (AUTHENTIC METHOD):
This is an authentic Ukrainian recipe for the dough. Assemble these ingredients:
2 cups white flour
1/2 cup room temperature water
1 tablespoon canola oil
Pour the flour into a mixing bowl and make a hole in the pile. Pour the oil and 1/4 cup of the water in the hole. Mix the flour, water and oil. When the water gets taken up my the flour, add the rest. Knead the mixture with your hands for at least 5 minutes.
Form the dough into a ball. If the dough is flaky, add water a tablespoon at a time and knead. If the dough is sticky, roll it in a tablespoon of flour and knead the flour in. The flour should be soft and malleable without being powdery, flaky, or sticky. This may require extra kneading. You will need two batches of this dough for the filling. QUICK AND EASY DOUGH RECIPE:
The recipe above requires a fine touch with kneading the dry and wet ingredients. This recipe is easier, but not authentic. Tastes great, though!
2 cups white flour
2 cups sour cream
Knead equal parts flour and sour cream in a bowl. This will make flour of a near-perfect consistency. You can scale this recipe up or down as needed.
FILLING:
There are many fillings for perogies. The only one I find acceptable is dry cottage cheese. However finding authentic cottage cheese is difficult, and the stuff they sell in supermarkets is only one half-step up from abysmal. Quark is servicable, as long as it is not one of the runny varieties. Ricotta is too sweet and runny for use.
If I use supermarket dry cottage cheese, I will dress it up using: 2 cups dry cottage cheese
1 teaspoon salt or Lowry's Seasoning Salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 or 2 tablespoons sour cream
1 egg
Mix everything together except the egg.
Taste the mixture and add any seasoning you prefer. Then stir in the raw egg thoroughly. If the mixture is runny, place it in a seive over a sink and press down on the mixture with a large spoon or spatula to force the liquid through the seive.
CUT THE DOUGH:
You will need to roll out the dough. You may find it easier to work with if you roll out small balls of the dough at a time (no larger than a baseball). Make the dough as thin and uniform as you can. Paper thin dough makes very delicate perogies which are delicious but difficult to cook or store. Try for dough that is about as thick as a DVD at its thinnest or two DVDs at the thickest. After cutting the dough, take the scraps and re-roll them out to make more rounds.
Now you will cut the dough. Traditionally, Ukrainians will use a drinking glass pressed into the dough to cut out circular pieces. Bah, I say, I've never seen that. I have seen a metal Mason Jar lid used like a cookie cutter, but unless you sharpen the edge of the lid, you will bruise your hand with all of the pressing. I use a lid as a guide and cut around it with a circular pizza slicer. The shape of the dough pieces do not have to be perfectly round, just get the basic shape and size.
Here is a picture of a plate of dough rounds. You can see how thick they are, and how they look when cut out. When you have a few of these ready, you can prepare to fill them. Start a large pot of water to full boil. Then get a clean teaspoon for the filling.
Don't make too many rounds at once before filling them, as they tend to stick to one another if you stack them.
Place a round in one hand, and using the teaspoon place a dollop of the cheese filling in the middle of the round. Do not overfill the round. Do not allow any moisture to come into contact with any edge of the round. If the round is overfilled, or if the edges get wet, it will fail to seal when you form the dumpling. 
Seal the dumpling by folding the round over the filling and pressing the edges together with your thumb and forefinger. Some people will form scalloped edges by pressing a pattern into the dough with the flat part of a butter knife or the tines of a fork. Make sure the edges seal securely so that nothing can get in or out! The dough must completely enclose the filling. 
At this point, you may choose to freeze any perogies you don't want to eat right away. Store them on cookie sheets covered with wax paper in your freezer. Once frozen, you can just throw all of your "rocks" into a big freezer bag, and retrieve the wax paper and cookie sheets for other uses. Whether they be fresh or frozen, when you are ready to cook the perogies, simply drop them a few at a time into your pot of boiling water. 
When are your perogies done cooking? When they all float, after three or four minutes (the egg and cheese will be cooked!). Remove the dumplings from the water with a slotted spoon. Some people fry their perogies. Blasphemers! I say. However, you can risk my wrath and fry them until golden on both sides on low-medium heat in a pan with chopped onions and butter. In the Ukraine, they will fry them in lard. Holy arteries, Batman. 
If you don't fry the dumplings, get them into a serving bowl with lots of butter before they have a chance to cool down. As the butter melts, stir the dumplings to make sure they do not stick. After all that work, it would be miserable if your entire bowl of dumplings got stuck together! If you are using paper-thin dough, do not boil dumplings with rolling water, and watch as they cook to avoid breakage. When serving these thin-dough perogies, place them on a serving plate so that they do not touch one another, and pour hot butter on them.
So here is the final product. Cheese perogies with a dab of sour cream are paired with a slow-roasted prime rib with fresh Polish horseradish, baked carrots, squash, and snap peas. The Chateauneuf du Pape is much too pretentious a wine to go with this meal, but I like the bottle, and I promise to drink it on the right occasion. Ukrainian sausage and hearty oven-fresh bread would be more traditional with perogies than what I have served here. Sprinkle fried onions on top, or chopped up bits of cooked bacon for garnish. Vodka would flow like a river. Budmo!
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