Use your favorite or typical mozzarella cheese based dough for the 'pastry'. There are all sorts of versions of this and admittedly, I make it different each time just based on whether or not I feel like adding baking powder, a little xanthan or whey protein powder to it. But it's a great, versatile dough obviously and it's what I used for these.
Dough
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 oz. cream cheese
1 egg
1/2 stick real butter (about 4 T)
2/3 c almond flour
1/3 c whey protein powder (0 carb and 0 sugar only or use about 2 T coconut flour instead)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t garlic powder
1/4 t salt
In a bowl, microwave the cheeses for a minute or so, stir, and microwave again until smooth and 'melty' and gloppy. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir quickly with a wooden spoon or stiff rubber spatula; kneading and stiring until it is uniform in color and a nice 'dough'.
Roll the dough out between pieces of parchment paper. Use a little sprinkle of almond flour dusted if it's too sticky. (Almond flour dough is sticky compared to a traditional wheat version.)
In a bowl mix the filling:
Spinach (either a small frozen box 6-10 oz.), thawed or a couple big handfuls of fresh
CHEESES: whatever you like; Parmesan, feta cheese, ricotta cheese, cream cheese
1 egg
onion powder or finely chopped green onion
garlic, minced
salt and pepper
This is just a regular spinach/cheese filling like you use in oodles of recipes and you can make it to your personal taste preference or use what you have on hand. I had ricotta I wanted to use up (check your sugar/carb counts for the brands you are buying!). Use about a cup or two of ricotta with 1/2 cup or so of Parmsan, maybe some feta. You might want an ounce of cream cheese to hold it together. You could leave it out if you only use ricotta as it already has moisture in it. Mix it well; add your spices/onion to your personal taste. Using fresh spinach, you can either chop it a little bit or microwave it for a bit to 'wilt' it to make it easy to mix into your filling. Obviously, frozen, thawed and drained-well spinach won't need that.
Cut your dough into squares. I got 16 of them. Mound a heaping tablespoon or two of filling in the center, top with another square and seal the edges to get 8 good sized pastry pockets. Or if you prefer, top each of the 16 squares with the filling and fold them over into triangles and seal the edges with your fingers or with a fork. Bake on parchment at 350 until the pastry is done - approximately 20-30 minutes.
Serve as is, or try them different ways as I described at the top of the post.
The dough... ready to roll
Try to make a square or rectangle with even edges to make it easier to cut your shapes
I was using up fresh spinach and ricotta this time; but use frozen and thawed spinach or feta, cream cheese, etc.
I like heavy garlic and onions but if you have to count your carbs carefully you may need to go lighter.
I ate them plain like this for lunch. Nice little hot pocket.
I served them with garlic butter and pizza sauce (homemade, sugar free) for one meal.
