Ella is at that age where she likes being in the know, likes listening in on conversations between her parents.
Her mom admits Ella may be a little nosy.
Ella’s bedroom is her own creation. She’s really happy with it. Her queen size bed sits somewhat unmade as a comfortable centerpiece that highlights her room’s coziness which features Ella’s decorating touches–daisies cover the wall overlooking her headboard (her favorite part), her name carved in a script font waiting to be hung on a wall next to the door to her closet, and a small desk handed down from her mother covered in the nicknackery of nine year old girl as well as those same odds and ends scattered around the room.
And her bedroom door opens nearly directly into her home’s kitchen.
Whether it’s because she’s nosy or simply because the kitchen sits between her bedroom and the rest of her home, she’s gravitated to the room that happens to be the center of a lot of activity. Maybe that’s why she’s also decided that she enjoys cooking quite a bit.
“I like thinking about making stuff and cooking things,” she admits over a plate of Chicken Alfredo she and her mom, Sarah Johnson, have made together.
She enjoys trying out new recipes and baking, but she’s been working to perfect her Chicken Alfredo.
It’s based on her Aunt Cesilie Huebner’s recipe, shared a few years ago after Ella fell in love with it.
“She’s always loved Alfredo,” Sarah said.
Sarah’s version was usually with a premade sauce. Cesilie, however, has her own recipe that she made while the Johnsons were visiting them in St. Louis. “Ella gobbled it up,” Sarah explained.
Cesilie shared the recipe via email, which has been printed out, though slightly incorrectly, and stored away for the days when the Johnson family craved some warm, creamy, garlicy goodness for dinner.
Ella is excited about entering third grade at Ireland Elementary School for several reasons, one of which includes the Chicken Alfredo.
Students in the third through fifth grades are invited to participate in a cooking contest towards the end of the school year. Entries into the contest can have their recipes added to the school cafeteria menu — a recent entry was a lasagna rollup that Ella absolutely loves.
“It was so good,” Ella said. “My mom took a picture of the recipe, and we made it at home.”
Apparently, something was amiss because “it didn’t taste as good.”
She craves them so much that she admits to constantly asking the cafeteria to make them. She’s still lamenting missing the lasagna rollup served on the day she was on her class’s field trip to Marengo Cave.
Maybe next school year.
Or maybe next school year her Chicken Alfredo recipe will be served up at the school. She’s been working on Aunt Cesilie’s recipe, adding her twists to it with hopes that it will do well in the contest.
But in the Johnson home, it’s called “Fricken Chicken.”
“My dad saw the recipe whenever I was making it and it said ‘icken Alfredo’ because it kind of cut it off,” Ella explained, laughing. “My dad just started making up words, and then I finally said, ‘Fricken Alfredo!’”
The name has stuck, and Ella can barely say it without laughing.
To prepare for the contest, which requires Ella to direct other sous chefs, she and her mom have been practicing making it. She’s done it about five times now. The first followed Aunt Cesilie’s directions explicitly, using measuring spoons and cups to keep everything perfectly in line.
On her fifth time, though, Ella is dashing the salt and pepper in without concern while adding some of her personality to it by experimenting with a bit of pesto in the creamy sauce. A scribbled-out measurement on the printed recipe suggests a teaspoon may have been too much pesto the first time.
No worries, she has a lot of time to continue experimenting to make it her own Fricken Chicken Alfredo.
She enjoys the cooking process. Her favorite part of cooking the recipe is deglazing the pan after frying up the chicken. “It’s so satisfying,” Ella said, echoing many a chef’s sentiment.
After completing the sauce, she places the chicken in with the tongs — interchangeably called spiky things, grabby things, or tweezers when she asks her mom for them — before adding the bowtie noodles.
She plates it with a sprinkle of parsley because “it just makes it pretty.”
Here is Ella’s Fricken Chicken Alfredo recipe.
Chicken Alfredo Recipe
Alfredo Sauce:
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 1/2 c chicken broth
- 1 1/2 c heavy cream
- 1 1/2 c shredded hard cheese (parmesan, asiago, Romano) – Note from Cesilie: “I think I used a blend of parm and asiago – I think blends are best but do parmesan alone works and taste great. I go with what I have.”
Instructions:
- Cook chicken first in a large skillet and then deglaze the pan with 2 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp minced garlic. Add 2 tbsp flour and whisk.
- Slowly add 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups chicken broth and whisk. Then, add another 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups of cream, whisking continually. Add salt, pepper, and paprika to taste. Then add your cheeses, such as fresh shredded Parmesan and Asiago, if you like. Whisk. When the cheese is melted and the sauce has reached the desired thickness, add the pasta and chicken.
Additional tip from Cesilie: “I also fry my chicken with a tbsp of bacon grease and I am pretty convinced that makes the flavor better ? Don’t wash the skillet or make sauce in different pan, just take off chicken and set aside.”
