Cooking in the Kitchen and Making AWESOME Chicken Nuggets — by Caleb EganFrei (14 years old)

cindy frei
Jul 21, 2017 · 5 min read

Last week, I finally got to meet Chef Travis and Chef Janalee, face to face. I had heard so much about both of them from my mom, but had never actually gotten to meet them. I also got to get into the kitchen and cook some chicken nuggets!

My mom flew our chef Travis in from Seattle (where he lives), so that we could all meet and he could spend some time in the kitchen with Janalee, who is our chef here in DC. We spent two long, but really exciting days at DC Union Kitchen making all of our recipes. It was a blast!

Being in the kitchen was not what I imagined. I thought it would be hard work, and long hours, but it was much more laid back. Everyone worked at their own pace, which made it really welcoming. There are so many steps for each of the recipes and because we soak our beans and peas for 24 hours, everything needed to be planned out well in advance.

Travis and Janalee started the first day by breaking down whole chickens for the chicken nuggets. It was amazing to watch them work with the knives.

Then they chopped onions and garlic and made a pate out of the chicken, which was going to be used for the chicken nuggets.

On the SCD Diet (Specific Carbohydrate Diet), we can’t have any grains, which means that Travis had to come up with a different kind of breading for the nuggets. He told me he tested a lot of different kinds of nut flours and coconut flours, but wanted to find a breading that not only tasted really good, but also fried up golden brown, so that it looked just like a traditional

chicken nuggets from say McDonalds or another fast food restaurant. I guess he knows us kids well. It not only has to taste good, but look good also. He told me it took years to come up with the recipe we’re using today, which uses yellow split peas.

We start by soaking our peas for 24 hours, and then I watched as they baked them and ground them into flour. It was pretty cool to see how one thing (the peas) completely transformed into another (the flour).

We also roasted a bunch of pork and made this awesome sauce for the enchiladas. Again, because we can’t have any sort of grains, Travis came up with a great idea for the tortillas and made them out of red lentils (which he again soaks for 24 hours so my body can digest them). Then he pureed them and ladled them into hot pans to make tortillas. It was amazing to watch.

It was a long day of preparing all of the recipe ingredients and the plan was to package everything the next day (basically put the ingredients together into the actual products).

It was exciting because WRC-TV was coming that day to do a story on me and Caleb’s Cooking Company. A really nice reporter named Aimee Cho filmed us as we put together the enchiladas. She also interviewed me for the story.

That afternoon, Travis put together an assembly line so that we could bread the chicken nuggets. First they were dipped in flour, then egg, and then back in flour again and then fried. It was great to be a part of the team. I was responsible for the final flour dip and of course, the taste test

It was a long two days in the kitchen, but it was really fun and rewarding. Not only did I get to meet Travis, Janalee and Anthony (a member of Janalee’s team), but I also got to see first hand exactly how our food is made.

Up to this point, I had just eaten our food (samples my mom gave me) and not thought anything of it. But now, seeing where it’s made, it feels different. I feel a connection like I didn’t before. Somehow, I feel more motivated on the SCD Diet. Seeing the food production makes me feel like I can live happier and more content on the diet because I am a part of it now. I’m not sure if that makes sense.

Anyway, it doesn’t hurt that our food tastes so much like “regular kid’s food” either.

Come check out our Chicken Nuggets for yourself. They’re pretty awesome. My mom’s put together some cool sampler packages so you can taste all the products at one time. Then, let us know what you think.

In the mean time, I’m getting ready to go to sleep away camp, so I’m pretty psyched to be taking nuggets, enchiladas and pizzas with me this year. Last year, I lived off of snacks and fruit. Believe me, I got hungry after 4 weeks

http://store.calebscookingcompany.com/
cindy frei

Written by

Entrepreneur. Founder of Caleb’s Cooking Company. Helping provide heathy food for kids without the crap.

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