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My Wareneki (Perogies) Gluten-free


I really missed Wareneki on the gluten-free diet and tried several recipes, but couldn't get them to work for me. I finally came up with my own recipe , combining and modifing the recipes I had.
Here is the one that I am happy with and my husband will also quite happily eat! That's important because I really don't care to make two meals. What I usually end up doing in that case is making his meal and I just eat 'whatever' !

Making this recipe today for lunch, I had to smile as I thought... "No one ever told our Mennonite grandmothers , who really knew how to cook, that 'Ach, das schmeckt aber gut!' (oh, but that tastes good!) translates to.. 'Oh my, what a lot of calories !!!' "
But we have found a way to have our Mennonite traditional dishes and still be healthy! Olive oil to the rescue!! smile

WARENEKI (PEROGIES)

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup cream-style cottage cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp oil

1/2 cup brown (or white) rice flour
1/4 cup pototo flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp. xanthun gum
1/2 tsp salt

(alternate flour mix that I like is 1/2 cup of white corn flour, 1/4 cup white bean flour,

1/4 cup of potato starch, 1/4 cup tapioca starch)

METHOD
1. place first 4 ingredients into blender and mix until totally smooth
2. put dry ingredients in plastic bag and mix thoroughly
3. pour liquid ingredients into bowl and add the dry ingredients
mix thoroughly , turn out onto dusted counter and knead until smooth - redust as needed until dough is non-sticky. I like sweet rice flour for rolling gluten-free dough but you can also use tapioca flour (Because of the cottage cheese in the dough the dough has a bit of a different texture but it handles well.)
4. Roll dough out as thin as possible and cut out your circles using cookie cutter or tumbler.
5. add your prefered filling and pinch edges of wareneki firmly.


TIP- always freeze your wareniki before cooking - keeps a better seal on edges
Drop frozen wareniki into boiling salted water with a tbsp of oil added... Boil for about 5 minutes. Drain and brown in butter in frying pan -- then serve with cream gravy and fried onions.
We love them with Mennonite Farmer Sausage
*************************

Variation On The Theme (Wareneki noodles)

I also like (actually prefer) to use the dough in the following way.



Roll out your dough as thin as possible , then roll it up and cut the roll off. The bigger the roll you roll the longer your noodles will be



Then slice the roll the width you want your noodles to be.. I find between a 1/4 to an 1/8 " works well.
The noodles uncurl easily
Boil them for several mintues in salted water, then drain well in collander.
Transfer to frying pan and brown noodles in olive oil and butter.

Sauce
fry onions (1/2 onion) in butter until crispy , then add 1 cup milk and thickener- I really like the new product Thicken-Thin ....but you can use cornstarch or sweet rice flour
Add 1/2 cup dry cottage cheese and heat through.
Spoon onto golden noodles
ENJOY!

PS. Leftovers reheat well in the microwave.

36 comments:

  1. Great pics Julie..looks oh so yummy! I'm glad you found a way to have this dish..can hardly be a Mennonite without the Wareneki, right?? hehe

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  2. I would come for lunch if you served this for sure! You are so clever. The pictures were great...especially for the noodles. Kathy

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  3. Julie, you could sell these gluten free recipes and here you are sharing them so that everyone can enjoy the foods we all love.
    Oh. . .they do look fantastic. I did smile, guess what I made for supper last night for my company? I'll be posting it soon, first we have to fry the leftovers for the picture op.

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  4. You give us such good illustrations and introduce foods I have never had! Thank you!

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  5. Well Ms. Julie! This is a sure bet! Wow...as has been said,...great shots AND..yep, I'm in for coming over for supper! Any leftovers? Looks scrumptious! You are brilliant!

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  6. Oh oh...my daughter wants lasagna for supper today, but now I'm craving vereniki and keilke! :)
    These are recipes I will definitely be trying soon! Thanks!

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  7. I can't wait to try this our family has been gluten free for a year and a half and I have missed perogies!

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  8. Hi Julie

    I was very pleased to see your recipe, as my osn is Gluten intolerant. Prior to diagnosis Wareneki's ( or perogies as he knows them) were his favourite. I was wondering what could I substitute the creamy cottage cheese with ( in the dough recipe) as he is also allergic to milk.

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    Replies
    1. I used organic soft tofu, blended with a bit of soya milk (or any other dairy free alternative would work)

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  9. Autism Mom .. if you e-mail me personally I have another recipe I can send you.. juliefrompearls@gmail.com

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  10. I tried these tonight... perhaps you can give me some tips. The dough seemed very hard and extremely difficult to roll out. The dough in your photo looks quite smooth and evenly textured. I could not get my dough rolled as thinly as I do other perogies... not even close. I had to cut fairly large circles in order for them to be able to hold any thing.

    when they were cooked they were quite good. I fried a few in the end and found that tasted much better as the texture seemed a little better crunchy.

    I saw you rolled up your dough to make the noodles. My dough would not roll up... it broke. I rolled it out as thinly as I could (1/4") and cut it into strips with a knife. I boiled them and they taste alright, just very thick.

    Can you tell me what I might have done wrong? Is your dough quite smooth? Is it supposed to handle similarly to regular perogie dough?

    Thanks!

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  11. Carla Anne… and for anyone else who may have had the same problem ... Getting the right balance between dry/liquid ingredients in gluten-free baking is more difficult than when you use reg. flour.

    It can depend on changes in the weather…. So you really have to get a feel for it.

    Obviously you needed more liquid … err on the side of too soft … you can always add more flour but not take it back out and adding more liquid after the fact is impossible.

    Yes.. the dough should handle very much like reg. warenki dough and be soft. It should be smooth and not break at all. Yours was just too dry.

    And I do prefer the wareneki fried .... but I think wheat ones are better fried too.

    For the noodles the dough should roll up very easily and yet not have the noodles stick together... Just keep the dough softer... you'll find you need very little sweet rice to make a soft dough (that feels too soft) firm enough to handle and yet stay soft and pliable enough to roll out easily.
    Please try again ... and let me know how it works for you the next time. If you still have trouble -- we'll figure it out together .

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  12. Hi -- is there any way to make the gluten free also dairy free?

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    1. two ideas, i can tolerate goats' milk and use goats' milk yoghurt after draining for a while if it isn't thick enough. goats' milk is closer in composition to mothers' milk and is often used by lactating mothers whose infants react to cows' milk in mom's diet
      my son has been raised on soya milk and for him i have used silken tofu in many recipes calling for sour cream, cream cheese or cottage cheese; silken tofu comes in three firmnesses
      good luck, wendy in nova scotia
      IMPORTANT if your child must be raised on soya products, include a cod liver OIL capsule and a calcium supplement daily for proper bone development

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  13. you have made me soooo happy!!! i am 13 weeks pregnant celiac and i crave a plate of steaming apple warenekie with sour cream/onion gravy! bless you for your recipe!!!! i thought my days of enjoying meno-foods was over!
    thanks Rachel

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  14. I used buttermilk instead of milk and let the dough rest before rolling out. They were great!

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  15. Delicious, melt in your mouth wareneki, they are fabulous and simple to make. We are novices to wareneki and our expectations were not high. What a great surprise when everyone raved about them. Thank you Julie for this and many other GF recipes you have posted.
    +tip-use a tea towel dusted with glutinous rice flour for rolling dough. Katie & Judy (British Columbia)

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  16. I made these last night and they were amazing. Made one major change and replaced the creamy cottage cheese with sour cream instead. I filled them with a mixture of 1 1/2cups dry cottage cheese and an egg yolk. They were perfect, will def. be making them again!!

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  17. Two questions:

    1. Potato starch or potato flour?

    2. What is dry cottage cheese?

    Thanks!

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  18. Anonymous... as you know there is a difference between potato flour and potato starch while tapioca flour or starch is the same thing .. silly,I know..
    I have added the flour alternative that I used for the recipe in our MGCC cookbook .. so you can try either one.
    Dry cottage cheese is just what you would think - dry cottage cheese curds rather than the creamed. The containers are labelled accordingly.

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  19. Wonderful recipe! It is a favourite now in our house. I substitute in thick full fat yogurt for the cottage cheese in the dough. It works very well. For potato flour I simply grind up instant potato flakes in my magic bullet. You may need to watch the dry/wet ratio because it can tend to be a bit sticky this way. I do agree that it's better to be sticky than dry when it comes to gf dough. I can always add more tapioca starch (I prefer tapioca starch for rolling)as I roll it out but adding in liquid is a big mess and almost impossible. I tend to leave my pasta dough a bit sticky as well. I have tried these rolled and cut into noodles as well. They are heavenly fried up until brown with browned sweet onions and served with fried pickled cabbage with caraway seed and Mennonite sausage!

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  20. Great post/recipe. I just saw this via a link on the Celiac community on facebook. Thanks for having such a fabulous recipe. I shall need to tweak it, as I don't do potato starch/flour, but it is a great starting place for me. I miss the Runza restaurant foldover sandwiches which are like giant Perogies.

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  21. Looks and sound delicious. Can you dry these like regular noodles? Or freeze? Perhaps on cookie sheets.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, You can dry these or freeze them (on cookie sheets as you said, before putting in bags)

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  22. I recently found your website and realized I hit the mother load for recipes of food that I grew up eating. I have been eating gluten free now for a couple of years and found this recipe for wareniki - my family loves it when I make regular wareniki but now I too can enjoy these in a GF style. I have one question, why do you use cream style cottage cheese in the dough, I have seen other recipes that also use cream cheese in the GF dough. Just curious as to the reason, I am looking forward to trying these over Easter.

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    1. Hi Kathy ... thanks for your comment. I think you misread the recipe. It is not cream cheese, but the creamed cottage cheese. I use the creamed cottage cheese in the dough for flavour, liquid and texture.

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  23. I just tried this recipe today. I grew up on cottage cheese wareniki and have missed being able to enjoy them without being sick since going gluten free! They were amazing!!! My son ate as much as I did and asked if we could have them for lunch and supper tomorrow! Will definitely be enjoying these on a regular basis in our house!

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    1. Thank you for making my day, Anonymous ! I'm thrilled you enjoyed them - I'm smiling at your son!

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  24. I am very excited to try this recipe! Can you tell me approx. how many perogies this recipe makes?

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    1. I get about 2 or 2 1/2 dozen but it depends very much on how thin you roll your dough and how big you make your perogies...

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  25. I make these frequently for my twin granddaughters and they are a big hit. Thanks for sharing your recipe

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  26. would this recipe work to make noodles in a pasta machine?

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    1. Sadly, I don't think it would .. the pasta machine really takes for granted that the noodle dough is 'elastic' and elastic demands gluten. So, go ahead and try it if you like but I would predict it to be 'not doable'.

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    2. Hello Juie Mennonite Girls cann cook hawe a gluten free cookbook for sale.I cam from Germany my kids kannt eat gluten. I hafe a problem cooking Gluten free.Cann you help me please!!!

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  27. I love this recipe. I double the batch and use one cup brown rice flour, 1/2 cup corn flour, 1/2 cup tapioca flour, and 1/2 corn starch. Tastes great with dry cottage cheese for the filling.

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  28. looks like a great recipe, going to try it. Noticed the picture of the Wareneki had farmer sausage too, mmmm, can't have one without the other. COuple of things, do you think the " noodles" could be used in chicken noodle soup?
    Are there any premixed gluten free flours that you can buy that come close to this combination?

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