Cooking, Photography,and Madeline

A weekend of fun despite the cold and snow. Madeline came on Saturday and hung out with us old folks for a short over nighter. Bill picked her up as the snow started to fall and took Madeline to the old house to play in the snow for a while. When she finally got here we decided it was too cold to go out and play. Madeline was more excited that we were going to make her recipe for dinner, then she was interested in the snow.
    We spent all afternoon in the kitchen working on a few different dishes. Madeline carefully measured out all the ingredients I needed for an apple cake, while I peeled and chopped the apples. She did the sifting, stirring, and the folding in. She almost made the apple cake herself. 

   While I worked on the Bean and Pasta soup Madeline cleaned up and re-arranged my spice shelf that badly needed it; all the while talking about making her famous recipe. She was so cute when she would say " Let me know when it is time to make my famous recipe, well it isn't famous but I just call it that"that made me smile every time she said it and she said it a lot. Madeline was almost too excited to wait for the dinner hour. 

   My heart has always been Madeline's , but there are times she melts it all over again. I gave her a camera just like mine for her 8th Birthday. The camera stays here and she can use it whenever she wants without asking. I try also not to tell when to take pictures , I try to let her decide when, where, what, and who. So when she had all my spices off the shelf and on the floor so she could organize them by size; she stopped what she was doing went in the other room and grabbed her camera. After 2 or 3 shots she put the camera back and proceeded to re-set my spice shelf. I asked if she got a shot and she replied " yep, you don't want to take too many pictures of the same thing" I just smiled and felt my heart melt a little more.

 After the shelf was set to her liking, back to the camera bag she goes and lickity split she has her picture and she's back to asking if it is time for her to make her recipe. 

   At last it is time to make dinner and Madeline can hardly contain herself. She nearly flies around the kitchen as she gathers her ingredients and puts together one of the funniest meals we ever had. Her recipe is simple and pretty typical for an 8 year old, I am just thankful it was something edible and not ice cream on a hamburger or something equally as gross. 
  Madeline calls it her famous recipe but claims it isn't famous, well now it is going to be, if only a little.

So here is Madeline's first famous recipe.
10 to 15 Chicken nuggets or sticks
Hot sauce or ranch dressing
shredded cheese in you favorite flavor
shredded lettuce
sliced tomato
soft and hard taco shells enough for 2 per person
 Pre heat the oven to 425
 On a parchment lined baking sheet lay out the chicken and place in the oven to cook. Bake 5 minutes and turn the chicken over baking another 5 minutes till chicken is cooked through and slightly brown. 
    While the chicken is cooking prepare the vegetables and set the table.
 Once the chicken is heated through remove from the oven and place on a serving platter. 
 Begin to assemble starting with the ranch dressing or hot sauce or both, put a generous amount on the taco hard or soft shell, place the chicken on top of the sauce. ( you can break the chicken into small pieces to make it easier to eat) Next add the cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Top with a little more sauce and enjoy. 
   We served the Bean and Pasta soup, and sliced cucumbers with Madeline's creation. Dinner was tasty, in fact it was more then tasty it was perfect. The pride and happy look on Madeline's face would have made even a plate of rocks taste good. Lucky for us it was chicken.
  As you may notice there is no photo of the finished recipe. Grandmama is slipping, I put the camera down when it was time to slice and dice the veggies. I wanted Madeline to be able to do most of the prepping and cooking so while there was a knife in her hand there could be no camera in mine. Then once dinner was being served I totally blanked on getting a picture of it.