Another cooking day with Victoria! Victoria is the chef that’s granting my wish from Make-A-Wish. Today we made green onion pancake, steamed broccoli, and a pasta salad.

The green onion pancake is a recipe my grandma knows. Since we didn’t use any yeast, the green onion pancake wasn’t easy to make. We made a dough with flour and water, and mixed green onion and salt in the dough. We rolled the pancake in circles, then fried them.

For the steamed broccoli, we put a small amount of water in a pot and added the brocoli. The evaporated water softens the broccoli. After the broccoli was steamed, we mixed it with grapes, bell pepper, pine nuts, and red onions.

Victoria chopped green olives in half while the egg noodles were boiling. She also diced some red onion. After the egg noodles were drained, she mixed them with the green olives and red onion. Sun dried tomato, red wine vinegar, Italian seasoning, and mustard were also added. To plate the pasta salad we added some basil leaves.

Check out Victoria here: https://www.eastbayhealthychef.com/

Today I cooked with Victoria, the chef granting my wish. Victoria’s son also came. He’s a marketing (or media?) major so he’s helping Make-A-Wish by documenting our cooking sessions. We made soba noodles and ramen today.

For the soba noodles, we boiled them in water for a short amount of time. Simultaneously we fried tofu with only little oil. After we drained the noodles, we mixed them with the tofu and added some sesame oil, grated garlic, soy sauce, and green onions.

For the ramen we boiled water with chicken and soy sauce to make broth. After about an hour, we mixed already cooked ramen with the broth. We shredded the chicken and added it on top of the ramen, along with tofu, red onion, and green onions.

Check Victoria out here: https://www.eastbayhealthychef.com/

Today I cooked with Victoria, the chef from Make-A-Wish. She brought a bunch of ingredients: chicken breast, thai basil, coconut milk, coriander, lemongrass, tofu, etc. We made Thai Basil Fried Rice and Tofu in Thai Green Curry.

For Thai Basil Fried Rice we marinate the chicken we cubed in soy sauce. Subsequently we fried the chicken in a pan. After the chicken was thoroughly cooked we added cooked brown rice. We added some sesame oil and soy sauce. Lastly, we added the Thai Basil, but only let it wilt for 30 seconds.

For the Tofu in Thai Green Curry, we made a green curry paste. For the green curry paste we added thai basil, roasted coriander, cilantro, coconut milk, shrimp paste, and lemongrass in a blender. After the paste was blended we added it to coconut milk that was being heated in a pan. After combining the coconut milk and paste together, we dropped tofu cubes into the mixture and incorporated it.

I talked to Victoria after cooking. Victoria says she loves working for herself. She wants to focus on those with physical disabilities so they can be healthier. Maybe in the future, she volunteer in a hospital and cook for them.

Check her out here: https://www.eastbayhealthychef.com/

Today is another cooking day with Victoria. Victoria is the chef granting my Make-A-Wish (see August 9, 2018). My Make-A-Wish is to create a cookbook. Last week was actually supposed to be my last cooking session, but she decided to give me another for my birthday (see October 20, 2018) present.

We did two kinds of Alfredo today. The first type of Alfredo was a chicken fettuccine alfredo, and the second was a chicken fettuccine alfredo with mushrooms and tomatoes.

We prepared the ingredients by slicing chicken breasts into strips, thinly slicing mushrooms, dicing onions, dicing tomatoes, and mincing garlic. We sauteed diced onions in a pan with a little olive oil. When the onion was translucent, we added the chicken breast strips and minced garlic. We let the chicken sit, and after the chicken was cooked we dumped half of the mixture into another pan.

In the first pan we added garlic powder and salt, then let it simmer.

In the second pan we added the diced tomatoes and sliced mushrooms. We also added garlic powder and salt. We continuously stirred the mixture until the released mushroom juices were evaporated.

In a large pot we added 3 cups of half & half and 3 cups of chicken broth. We added fettuccine when the mixture came to a boil. We used a whole package of fettuccine (16 oz). The fettuccine absorbs the mixture, therefore it reduces; the starch released by the fettuccine thickens the mixture, making it a sauce.

When the fettuccine was Al dente, we separated the noodle in half for each pan. The noodles were combined with the pans ingredients, and that’s it!

Today is my last cooking session with Victoria. I already chose what recipes we made to include in the cookbook. Victoria will take those recipes and write them. When Victoria is finished writing those recipes, she’ll email them to my Mom and I, and we’ll try to recreate them. Victoria and I will meet again in December to format the cookbook.

Check out Victoria: https://www.eastbayhealthychef.com/