The Cook’s Country Recipe for Potato and Cheese Pierogis can’t be beat. Today I made the Pierogis with sweet potatoes and I thought cranberry salsa matcha would be great with them. This made 32 pierogis for me. I did have extra filling and scrap dough left that I put together and made a crazy kind of small 2 serving lasagna with. Serving size is difficult to determine because I don’t know if you want this for a side serving or a whole meal…….I like this for a side serving so I’ll say at least 10 servings.

Ingredients for around 10 side servings

2 1/2 cups bread flour + extra for lightly flouring surfaces

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup sour cream

1 egg

1 yolk

salt to taste

4 average to small size sweet potatoes – peeled

1/4 cup whipped cream cheese

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

dash nutmeg

sea salt – to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

The sweet potatoes go in a pan or. baking dish with about a 1/2 cup of water. The pan or dish gets covered and they stay in the oven till fork tender. (about an hour)

The bread flour, baking powder, sour cream, egg, yolk, salt go in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix at medium-high speed for 8 minutes. Cover the dough so it doesn’t dry out. This needs to rest about 30 minutes. You can chill it but then you will have to let it warm to room temperature.

While the sweet potatoes are hot mash them with the cream cheese, butter, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

Roll out about 1/3 of your dough on a board or rolling mat. If desired use plastic wrap over the dough so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin. (us flour as sparingly as possible.)

Roll around 1/8 inch.

Remove scap dough and either use for something else or toss because it is much tougher second time around.

Fill about 1/2 meatball size and pinch the middle shut.

Then finish closing it up.

Repeat with rest of dough until done.

Place the pierogi on trays that are oiled or sprayed with nonstick spray because they might stick.

Boil them in batches in salted water till they float.

You don’t need to fry them but if you want to fry them I do one stick of butter with a splash of canola oil. If desired fry on each side on medium heat till done.

I usually make my own cranberry sauce but picked up a can. I forgot how bad canned cranberry sauce taste and added some of the salsa matcha I made that is published on my website……These days you can buy salsa matcha at the store if you want but this one here is very good.

A Special THANKS!!!! To Cook’s Country Magazine so I could do what you see here!

I had a spaghetti squash to use and wanted to find a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe. I wondered how he would do a Spaghetti Squash? Oh and incase you don’t know he is a multi award wining chef, restauranteur, and cookbook author. His recipes that I’ve done so far are all unique and uniquely FORKING DELICIOUS…..ANYWAYS>>>>>I couldn’t find a spaghetti squash recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi so I used one of his pasta recipes as a guild for Spaghetti Squash……Besides swapping spaghetti squash for pasta I made a few slight changes. Maybe the other biggest change was to use much more spinach than for the pasta recipe. I just felt it needed it. Serving size is difficult to determine because I don’t know if you want a tiny dish or a big bowl full. I think that this will be at least 6 servings. But some people will get more servings.

Ingredients for around 6 servings

3+1/2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil + a little extra to spray squash pan

1 small onion – fine chop

3 garlic cloves – crushed and fine chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 Tablespoon thyme – chopped

7 anchovies – chopped (about half a 2 ounce can ….you can freeze what you don’t use)

1 medium lemon – juice and zest

2 – 15 oz cans chickpeas – drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon dark brown sugar

1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (I used vegetable)

1 spaghetti squash – If you can cut in half but not long ways and remove seeds and membranes……..I note that this is hard to do and you can get injured. If this is too chancy just cook the spaghetti squash whole…..and remove the seeds and membranes when it is cool enough to handle…….It might take slightly longer)

12 oz bag frozen spinach

1 tablespoon parsley

1 1/2 teaspoons za’atar

sea salt – to taste

black pepper – to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Spray pan with olive oil.

Put either whole squash or half squash (cleaned out) on pan.

The squash usually needs 45-60 minutes on the middle rack. Or cook till soft to touch.

While the squash is cooking.

On hight heat cook the onions, garlic, cumin, thyme, anchovies, lemon zest, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper till golden in color 3-4 minutes.

Reduce heat to medium. Add the chickpeas and sugar. Fry 8 minutes.

Add stock and lemon juice. Simmer 6 minutes.

Stir in frozen spinach. Give it about 2 minutes.

Add spaghetti squash.

Serve and finish with za’atar and parsley.

It’s FORKING DELICIOUS!!!!!

A Special THANKS!!!! to Yotam Ottolenghi for his Gigli with Chickpeas and Za’atar recipe so I could come up with what I did!