Grain Free Pinwheels Recipe, Or Chicken Potato Roll Ups- Egg Free, With Vegan Options

I don't even know when I had deli roll for the first time, but it probably was somewhere around my 16th year. I was eating over at someone's house, and they served this delicious concoction of puff pastry dough, pastrami and other deli, mustard, and some sauce, I don't remember what. I really enjoyed it, and made it myself a bunch of times...
Until I actually started paying attention to the health and cost aspects of the foods I was preparing and eating. And then I stayed far away. Since deli roll is traditionally made with puff pastry dough- made with margarine round these parts- something that is one of those few things mainstream and alternative medicine agree is super bad for you. Add to that the gluten in puff pastry dough (debatable about whether it is actually unhealthy for everyone, or just for many people including myself and a few family members), and all the garbage found in standard deli meat, and you've got one of the more unhealthy foods out there- something I certainly don't plan on making for my family to eat.

But... I have this thing for rolled up stuff. I just think the fact that something is rolled up makes it look so much nicer, more appealing, and usually photogenic as well (the irony being that the pictures in this post didn't come out as photogenic as I'd hoped). Its how I take dirt cheap things and pretend I'm being fancy- by rolling them up!
So while I didn't make deli roll in years, I can't say I never missed it. I recently saw a recipe in a group for grain free deli roll, using potatoes, eggs, and potato starch, and I was excited about it.
Until I realized that it had eggs, which make me feel icky when I eat them.
And deli.
Since deli meat, in addition to being unhealthy because of all the additives in it, is also far from cheap.
And then I had this brilliant idea- instead of making my "deli roll" with deli, I'd make it with deboned chicken. To keep it extra frugal I used a whole chicken that I bought on sale, then boiled it to make broth, and then deboned it and used the meat from the chicken to make these pinwheels, so I ended up getting quite a few dishes from that chicken, and it was much cheaper than deli meat.

Everyone in my family loved it and said that I should make it again.

I made mine completely grain free, with potato starch and flax seed only, however, I think the next time that I try to make this, I will end up using some other flours, maybe rice flour or buckwheat flour, instead of the potato starch...

If you're vegan, or just looking to save money, you can mix and match up the filling. I did a mix of chicken and carrots, but this would also work well with lentils, beans, other meat replacements, veggies, or a mix of the above.

And now that I've been thinking about this- this probably would be super awesome pizza style, with tomato sauce, cheese, and toppings, instead of the meat and veggies. I'm super psyched to try that version out!

Grain Free Pinwheels Recipe, Or Chicken Potato Roll Ups- Egg Free, With Vegan Options

Ingredients:
6 very large potatoes-
3/4 cup ground flax seeds
~3 cups potato starch or other flour, as needed
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 medium onion
Oil
Sauce- I used a combination of homemade plum jam and mustard in one roll, and ketchup and mustard in another. Feel free to use whatever sauces you like. Tomato based, teriyaki, mayo, whatever.
Fillings- meat, chicken, fish, veggies, legumes- take your pick.

Instructions:
1. Boil your potatoes until fully soft.

2. Mash your potatoes well.

3. Take part of your potatoes and blend them up in a food processor together with one medium onion. Now this is the part that is tricky. Because the part that you blend will be sticky. You don't want to blend too much or it'll be too sticky and it'll be hard to work with, and you'll need more flour. I blended half the mashed potatoes in the food processor, but next time I'll try this with just 1/3 blended, and I'll probably need less flour/starch then.

4. Mix the blended mashed potatoes with the regular mashed potatoes, along with the flax seed and salt. Add the potato starch or other flour, half a cup at a time, until you have a decent workable dough. It will still be wettish, but you don't want it to be super sticky or liquidy.

5. Oil a piece of parchment paper, then spread half of your mixture out on the paper, flat, so it is even and covers most of it. Keep away from the edges, or there is a good chance that the roll won't fit on your oven tray and you'll have to cut it and move it- not an easy feat- trust me on this one. Oiling or wetting your hand repeatedly will help the mixture not stick to your hand too much.

6. Mix your sauce and spread it on the potato mixture, making sure to get it all the way to the ends.

7. Spread your veggies and meat or whatever filling you want. I used sauteed grated carrots and the shredded deboned chicken, but anything goes.

8. Using the parchment paper, pick up the end and roll the roll together, slowly and carefully...

9. Voila- the finished roll! See what I said about staying away from the edge? This was a headache to cut up and cook in two separate parts.



But I managed. See?

10. Spread more sauce on the roll, whatever you want.

11. Bake at 350 for about an hour, or until the top starts browning and it looks fully solid.



12. Let it cool somewhat before cutting. If you're using potato starch, it solidifies more when it isn't straight straight out of the oven.



Dig in and enjoy!

Ever hear of deli roll before, or made it? Does this look like something you'd try? Which variation would you try?