Paprika and Pierogi: Hungarian Chicken Stew

Baby, it's cold outside.  Really, really cold.  Which makes it stew weather.

Stews are great.  They are warm and filling, like a cozy blanket for your insides.  I love curling up with a bowl of savory goodness and watching the snow fall from the comfort of my warm kitchen.

This chicken stew is one of the favorites around my house, as far as stews go.  Probably because of the pierogi.  I mean, you can't go wrong with a good pierogi.  They're potatoes wrapped in pasta...I could practically live in them and die of carb happiness.  I'm not going to lie to you here, homemade pierogi are amazing.  I used to work as a teacher in an area in the city that had a large concentration of Polish immigrants, and I have tasted some fantastic pierogi.  Thank goodness for cultures that like to feed the people who teach their children!  However, also from personal experience, making homemade pierogi is not the easiest process.  And, as much as I like spending all day in the kitchen, I also like meals that you can get on the table in a decent amount of time on busy days.  Fortunately, there are a lot of good natural brands of pierogi in the freezers of grocery stores these days.  Not quite as good as homemade, but still pretty darn delicious.  Peter and Pat's pierogi are the ones I've been using lately, after discovering them at a Sam's Club exhibit thing.  For this recipe, I would go with either onion or cheddar pierogi.

Okay, I got a bit ahead of myself there.  Let's get to the stew.