Chef Noah in action

Here we go, already the end of the first week of Summer vacation.
If all of them go this quick, it's going to be a fast ride to back to school...

This week, I decided to be the chef and asked Maman to be my sous chef.
I planned for all the meals: in our house, each meal we cook is for two dinners, so I was responsible for 3 meals but had to make the dinner salad every night. I went shopping with Maman and chose my ingredients.

Dinner 1:
"I want to make a pizza with artichokes and mint" I said. We found a Articoke-Tomato-Mint-Feta pizza recipe and to work I went.
Maman forgot to take the pics but I did all the steps: rolled the dough ( the Trader Joe's wheat dough is very good!), cut the tomatoes, got the mint in the yard, cut the artichokes, cut the onion crumbled the feta and once the dough was cooked a little, arranged the ingredients.
While it was in the oven, I prepared the salads and I am quite good at making those. I love veggies!
Every body, including me,  gave my first meal two thumbs up.

Dinner 2:
"I want chicken drumsticks and polenta" I said. Maman suggested some spices for the chicken and roasted leftover asparagus but other wise, I did it all again.
The salad:

Putting spices on the chicken and putting it in the pan to sauté on each side.

Preparing the polenta

And voilà! Another delicious meal enjoyed by all.

Dinner 3:
"I want spaghetti, shrimp, capers and tomatoes." So we looked for a recipe containing all those and back in the kitchen we were.
After I made the salads, I chopped the onions and I even got to use the big knife to chop it small.

 It was super hard smashing the garlic with the press though.

After putting the tomatoes in, I made sure to look at the recipe to know what the next step would be. It's nice to follow along on the tablet.

Maman let me pour the boiling water from the spaghetti and shrimp. I was a little worried on that one!

Once the water was out, it was time to mix it all together in the big pan with basil and red pepper flakes.

And it was another successful dinner. Although we ended up adding more red pepper flakes and some parmesan for the second evening of this meal.

 Best part of being a chef: "the cooking AND the eating".
Worst part: "The worst part would have been to not do it."

Comment from the sous-chef: "Well, I was quite impressed by Noah's determination to do it and by his eagerness to try to do everything... Although it would have been nice if the sous-chef did not have to do all the cleaning!"

My little sister came for a visit this Saturday and I told Maman that since it was my week, I wanted to help too. So here I was, back at the counter, cutting cucumbers for a yogurt sauce, zesting lemon for a pasta dish and making a Crème patissière for dessert.

I was very excited to see my sister again but of course, as soon as she showed up, I made sure to disappear in a corner somewhere with my Legos. Because, yeah, babies are cute but I am not going to get caught kissing one... even if I actually really wanted to.

And at not quite 10 months, she already walks!
Maman insisted on taking pictures and well, let say that I was less than cooperative so here is what she got...

 And this last one, it's both Lilian and I and it shows that at nearly 10 month old, we had the same big blue eyes...

And here is me, at nearly 7 years old!