Pasta fail and chicken strips

A friend of my mom's, Jolie , gave me a pasta roller because she thought I would like to learn to make pasta, and I do.

My mom looked up a recipe online and we decided to try it. I also wanted to try to make chicken strips from my book Make-Ahead Paleo: Healthy Gluten-, Grain- & Dairy-Free Recipes Ready When & Where You Are.

We got all the ingredients from the store and read over recipes so we knew exactly what to do.

We started the pasta first in the food processor. It was very gooey, so we added more flour. We kept adding more flour until it looked like dough.

Then it had to sit for 30 minutes. 

 While we waited, we started on the chicken strips. 

First, I made a flour castle:

There's a little door and a moat. 

Then I crashed it with fork. 

We had to make three pans of ingredients to dip the chicken in- flour, eggs, flour. I really liked the dipping part, but it was really sticky because of the egg. And the flour, and the other flour, and I got it all over my hands and then I had chicken fingers! 

Then we put those in the pan in coconut oil and cooked them. 

Meanwhile, back to the pasta... 

I tried to roll it out. 

And it turned to mush. 

We just couldn't make it work. 

So then, we turned them into little balls, mom said they would be like gnocci, and we boiled them.

Our chicken was done. That part was easy! And they were really tasty, my mom and I kept eating them instead of waiting for dinner. 

The chicken strips were DELICIOUS! The gnocci tasted a little doughy, so I put more salt on it and it tasted all very good. 

Maybe we will try a different pasta recipe next time. Or maybe someone else can help me because my mom is out of patience with trying to make the gluten free pasta. 

Swirl Cookies

I was looking through my cookbook,Make-Ahead Paleo: Healthy Gluten-, Grain- & Dairy-Free Recipes Ready When & Where You Are, and I found these Almond Butter Swirl cookies and I knew I had to make them!

Well, we had to go grocery shopping to get all of the ingredients. I wanted to set them all up and take a picture like people do on Pinterest. We had to buy a lot of stuff for these cookies!

Mom said put the ingredients in the bowl, but she wasn't being very descriptive, so, I put the ingredients in the bowl. Then she told me to take it back out and crack the egg. I was just trying to follow instructions! 

The almond flour looked really good like crumbs, but it does NOT taste good plain! Don't eat it until they are actually cookies. 

After all the ingredients were together, I had to swirl them. So I took one chocolate and one vanilla and had to roll it in a ball. It was so sticky! 

My swirly cookies on the cookie sheet. I thought they were going to turn out into big blobs. 

But they didn't! They turned out beautiful! 

COOKIES!!!! 

These cookies were so delicious. They lasted a very short time because they were so delicious. 

Buy the book from my Amazon page below to get the recipe and make them for yourself! 

My First College

My mom gave us all coupon books for Christmas with things to do through the year with us. One of the first things was a tour and cooking demonstration at LeCordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in downtown Portland.

We took a tour first. We saw an ironing room and my mom was taking pictures of that. They have an ironing room because when the students are on campus they have to wear their chef jackets and they have to be ironed because they work with food and they are suppose to look professional.

We took a tour of the kitchens, and there were large mixers and huge tables. It was very impressive. Only, I could smell the gluten and feel it in my lungs and it started making me feel a little sick. 

Next up, we went to the demonstration kitchen where the chef taught us to cook a meal. The chef was a teacher who had been a chef in fancy restaurants and cruise ships all around the world.

He taught us to make lettuce wrapped steaks with veggies. It looked really easy to make.

Then... he called me up to the front! I was pretty scared but I did it. So I stood up in front of everyone and made the wrap and tasted it! It was so exciting for me.