Planned pierogies, produced pot pies

Alright folks, I was recently back in the kitchen concocting new Bren-friendly recipes, so I have a new recipe for you.

My favorite food is pierogie, which is a Polish ravioli with potato and cheese inside. They are typically fried and served with sour cream (not a fan) or applesauce(yes!). My Mama always used to make them on my birthday, and since I was home close to my birthday this year we decided to try to make a modified version.

Stuff we used:
(these are estimates, as we didn't use any measuring instruments)
-Cup or two of rice flour
-A large egg
-Oil (we used olive and safflower)
-A sweet potato
-Butter
-Vegetable shortening (that's fancy talk for Crisco, y'all)
-Cold water
-Wax paper
-Rolling pin
-Spatula
-Fork
-Knife
-Skillet
-Toaster oven (regular ovens are acceptable)

First, make a mountain with your flour (yes, I play with my food; and my Mama encourages it!) and make a hole in the middle. Crack that egg right inside that volcano you crafted, and pour a bit of olive oil in there for lava. Grab your fork and scramble up that egg yolk. (We also tried using Crisco instead of egg + oil, you'll find out how well that worked for us...)


Get in there and man handle it, kneading it all together. Add little bits of water as needed, while you knead.

Once it is well integrated, place the dough betwixt some wax paper. Roll it out.


Heat up a sweet potato (oven, toaster oven, microwave, the hot Texas sun- whichever you prefer) and mash it with some butter.


Remove the top layer of wax paper (you may need to slowly pry with a knife) and cut rectangles in the dough. Dole out your sweet potato. Fold over the dough and press the sides with your fork to seal the pouches. (Gently, lest you tear your dough!) Remove the finished product from the bottom wax paper with a spatula.


Heat some oil in your skillet and place the pouches in. (Again, be gentle- we lost a few from the wax paper to the pan).

As you can see, top right, the egg + oil version fried well. You can also see, bottom left, how the Crisco did not. Burned Crisco smells like something out of Anchorman! We decided to bake those pouches instead, as you see bottom right. (They fell apart when we tried to seal them so Mama said "forget it."


Here are the finished fried pouches. I'm sure you can surmise which is which.


The oil + egg, fried version worked well, but we should have rolled the dough thinner. (I couldn't break one of them open with my hands)

These fell apart in our hands and had the consistency of grits.


My Facebook status, post recipe attempt: "Attempted to make a favorite recipe Bren-friendly tonight, may have instead invented an impenetrable building material capable of space travel, and a version of edible play sand."

So not so much a pierogie, as a sweet potato pot pie, but with some applesauce on top, these were actually pretty good!


We give Scruffy a taste...