My husband and his friend make the ride to pick it up on Holy Thursday while the kids and I clean the house from top to bottom. Though you're probably asking yourself, why would you buy from the Polish market if you are Lithuanian? Well, some of the foods that we cook are very similar, but have different names. Normally we would start all the cooking on Holy Saturday, but since it's time consuming, I start on Holy Thursday. I like to start by making Kugelis. Kugelis is a potato dish that full of delishesness. Now in my house I have to make four. One for the kids to eat right away, two for the brunch, and one for leftovers. The process for making this "potato" dish is very simple. This is where I cheat and buy pre shredded potato's instead of grating the potato's and my knuckles at the same time. The best part of this dish is all the bacon, onion and evaporated milk you use. The aromas that come from combining all these together over powers my house. This is why we have to have an "eat one now" dish. Once this dish is completed we then move on to the "Lithuanian meat dumpling" also know as a Kuldunai.
This is where my kids can get their hands dirty. The Kuldunai takes two days to make. The first day, you make the dough and the stuffing which is a combination of ground meat, rosemary, onion, salt and pepper. I find it best to make the stuffing the day before and let in sit in the refrigerator overnight. It allows time for all the spices to settle into the meat. On the second day, you start to roll out the dough as thin as possible without ripping it, you make circles with the rim of a glass, add the filling and fold in half. Be careful, they don't always stick together and they shouldn't look to perfect. I was actually told by my husband's cousin that my Kuldunai were a disappointment because they were "to perfect." I'm not Lithuanian, I'm Irish I told her and if she didn't like the way they looked, she didn't have to eat them.
