Mennonites knock out 20,000 verenika
Staff writer
Two hundred Mennonites worked steadily and with “a whole lot of love” Saturday to make a difference in the world.
Mennonites from several congregations gathered at Hillsboro’s Parkview Mennonite Brethren Church to make 20,000 verenika.
What does it take to make 20,000 verenikas? According to coordinator Karen Hiebert, it takes 2,000 pounds of cottage cheese, 1,000 pounds of flour, 5,400 eggs, 40 gallons of milk, and 200 people.
The eight-hour operation filled both the church’s kitchen and its activity center.
In the activity center, workers cracked eggs into buckets, mixed dough in a commercial mixer, ran balls of dough through a bench dough roller, placed dough on plastic boards, and carried dough to work tables.
At each round work table, five to six workers cut the dough into circles, scooped cottage cheese filling into the centers, folded the circles in half, and pressed the edges closed to form half-circles. Then the pastries were placed six apiece onto Styrofoam trays, bagged, closed with twist-ties, and set into large pizza boxes.
The boxes were tallied and taken to a semi- trailer freezer, where the pastries will be stored.
In the kitchen, workers squeezed cottage cheese to remove whey, stirred eggs with cottage cheese and salt and pepper to prepare filling, and mixed the ingredients in a commercial mixer.
The pastries, filled with cottage cheese, will be fried and sold April 8 and 9 during the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale and Aug. 5, 6, and 7 during Goessel Threshing Days.
“We will sell about 1,000 to the volunteers,” Hiebert said.
Money raised at the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale will be used to assist missionaries for people throughout the nation and worldwide.