Gluten, Egg, Cow dairy- free Pierogi

Yum! How long has it been since I've had Pierogi?!

When I was a little girl my Polish grandma would come to visit and we would have pierogi marathons. 

All day pierogi making followed by all evening pierogi eating. Then we would freeze the hundreds of pierogies for future consumption. We always made potato cheese and we always made a delicious sauce with sauteed onion and sour cream. 

Well...since going Gluten, cow dairy, soy and egg free I haven't had a pierogi. So it's more than 5 years and probably a lot more than that. After making ravioli and then looking at these giant Organic potatoes that arrived in my organic box, I was inspired.

Pierogi are pretty simple. You just need a good gluten free pasta dough mix and the rest is easy. I, again, used the schar brand flour mix for pasta and instead of egg I used xanthan gum. About a quarter of a teaspoon for each 80 gm of pasta flour and a sprinkle of agar agar just for kicks.
I used 400gm of flour, 1 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan plus the sprinkle of agar agar, about 5 spoons of oil and 1 1/2 cups of water all into the food processor and mix. Then added in very slowly water until it started to mix well. I had to push the flour down a bit with a spatula. You can add flour back in until it forms a ball. At this point I put it on a well floured surface and kneaded it with more flour until it lost the stickiness. Cover with plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out while you prepare the filling.

Meanwhile, you can peel and cut up your potatoes and add them to boiling water. Cook until soft, drain and cool.

Here I've added some salt and pepper. 

Next sauté a large onion in olive oil or butter. When they are soft and translucent they are done. 

Add them to the potatoes and mix! Not too much or they turn to glue! Just enough to get the lumps out.

Make sure the potato and onions are cool and add in some grated cheese. I used pecorino. Pure sheep cheese. I used a soft young pecorino. The hardest ones might be too flavorful for this recipe. Taste the filling and see if you like it. Add salt and pepper as you like.

Next I rolled out my dough, half at a time, with my trusty white wine bottle that we will probably never drink. Someone brought it to a party here once. We are red wine drinkers but when it comes to white, I only drink the ones with bubbles! 

Some tools: a lid to one of those giant 52oz coconut oil containers. Small bowls or large mugs will work just fine. Search around your kitchen and you will most likely find something that is the right size. Otherwise you can just make them any size you want. I like 'em big!

I prepared a little bowl of water with a brush to help seal the dough. I thought I would need that fork up there to seal like I did with the ravioli but it just came naturally to use my fingers. I must have been channeling my late grandma. Using your fingers looks like what they are supposed to look like.

This is a little too much filling but try to get as much as you can in. I had to take some out after this picture.

Thank you husband for stepping in to take pictures!

Fold over and press down the sides until they stick. 

And try not to use too much water. It might do the opposite and I found out.

This is how much my 400grams of flour made. My three large potatoes left a lot more filling than was needed.

I packed up the Pierogies that I won't be using right away in freezer bags for single time use and put them in the freezer. I'm happy that I have some easy meals ready to go...We don't stay at home much when the weather is nice so it is impossible to cook something good in such short amounts of time. We usually get home right at dinner time(8pm) or even later. 

Now for the sauce. The color of these photographs has changed to night time yellow!

Cut an onion in half and slice it up into thin strips. Saute with oil or butter until browned. 

Add salt and pepper and then mix it in Sour cream if you can, otherwise do what I did. Pure goat milk greek yogurt. It's thick and creamy like sour cream.

Boil a large pot of water and drop in your pierogi. They float when they are cooked. After taking them out of the water fry them a little on each side in a pan with oil or butter. They should be golden brown. 

I probably could have cooked these a little longer in the pan to get them a little more brown but they were good anyway.

Dollup the onion-yogurt mixture on your Pierogi and eat. 

Don't forget to eat something green! These are heavy!

I made some bietole, which is...chard...thank you wikipedia, sauteed with garlic. There were more, I just ate them before I took the picture! ha!

Gluten and Egg Free Mushroom Ricotta Ravioli

 This blog post is about making Gluten free ravioli from scratch but first I wanted to share what happened when I made a salad with Spirulina crunchies on it. I didn't finish it so I left it in the fridge overnight. When I went to get it out the next day for lunch, the spirulina had leaked the blue from it's blue-green! And who thought we don't eat anything natural this color!? Next time I need blue food coloring I know where to go. Even blueberries don't produce this color. They make everything purple!

Ok, on to the Raviolis! I accidentally wasn't thinking of blog posts when I started making this so, no photos until this point. I'll explain what I did. I found this amazing flour mix. Sorry, for those of you in the States who don't have nice daughters or sisters who are coming home soon to bring you this stuff from Europe! It's from the brand Schar, the A is supposed to have the two dots over it but I have no idea how to produce that on this keyboard. Their website is www.schaer.com and the product just says Farina(flour in Italian). There are pictures of pasta and gnocchi on the package so you know what it is good for. All the recipes on the package called for egg but I cannot eat egg without some bad effects...so I did it like this: 80 grams of flour(about one serving size) 

plus one egg substitute, in my case a light sprinkle of xanthan gum and a light sprinkle of agar agar

Then about a tablespoon of olive oil and water. It called for one tablespoon of water but that wasn't enough. I put all in a food processor and I drizzled in water until it turned well. Then added more flour until it made a ball. I took out the ball and it was still a bit sticky so I kneaded it on a well floured surface adding flour until it was smooth. 

I set aside the dough covered until The filling was ready

The filling was this:

Sauté onions in olive oil until translucent

Add chopped up mushrooms

salt and pepper to taste

once cooked add to food processor with

goat ricotta

minced garlic

process a bit and ready

I rolled out the dough with a wine bottle...I have no rolling pin, shame on me!

Then cut it into a long rectangle. I cut the rectangle in the middle lengthwise and then put tablespoons of filling placed evenly along the strip. I brushed water around each spoonful of filling then placed the other strip over that one. I lightly pushed down the dough around each filling to make sure I could tell where they were and then cut each square to separate the ravioli. I then used a fork to go around each square to seal it. 

I had to wet a few pieces and mend broken parts. Gluten free pasta in not easy without eggs! But it all worked. No ruptured ravioli! 

When the ravioli have been assembled you just put them in boiling water. They are done when they start to float. You can take them out one at a time as they float up to the top and place them in a sauce pan that has melted butter or oil with fresh sage.

I used goat butter.

A dash of freshly ground salt and pepper and you are done!

This was my first attempt and they were pretty darn good. I've been craving the sensation of biting into a ravioli since I moved to Italy. 

Next time I will try to add more filling and have less pasta edge on each piece, as the expert(my husband) so delicately told me. 

And from the table as I ate my treasured ravioli, the dogs were warm and comfy in front of the stove.

 It's blurry because I had to zoom!