For each of my childhood birthdays my mom would prepare a special meal and dessert for me; it could be anything I wanted.  Without fail, I would request the same dinner every single year – a super rich chicken in cream sauce recipe.  Having it for my birthday was our family tradition up until I moved to California six years ago.

With a monumental birthday coming up (the big 3-0) I found myself homesick and longing for my mom’s chicken and cream sauce.  I had never previously attempted to make it but figured that I had enough cooking experience under my belt to give it a try.  My mom still had the recipe handy and sent it to me but there was one problem…I have cut lactose and gluten out of my diet and the original recipe was heavy on cream and flour.  Hmm.

Substituting almond flour for regular flour seemed straight forward enough, but what to do about the cream…  Fortunately for me, Google exists and was able to provide a plethora of alternatives.  I threw caution to the wind and went with the most basic option I could find – substituting 2/6 cup of soy milk and 1/6 cup of oil for 1/2 cup of heavy cream.  The consistency seemed okay.  Not perfect, but okay.  And flour behaves like flour so the recipe should work, right?  Wrong.

Now, this was in no way a complete disaster.  It just didn’t taste exactly like my mom’s and that turned me into an emotional mess.  Neither the meal or the pictures came out quite how I wanted them to and I considered not posting this entrée at all.  It was my mom who encouraged me to go ahead with it as planned because it’s a recipe that means a lot to me, it still tasted amazing and, as she pointed out, maybe somebody out there has a suggestion for how to improve it next time.  So without further explanation or ado, I give you…

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