Maggie Rennie

By Published On: April 16, 2014

Maggie Rennie calls herself a “perfectionist.” The Calhoun City eighth grader likes everything “nice and neat” from her room to her raspberry tarts. She adapted a fruit tart recipe to her liking, using her favorite, raspberries, and drizzles “a pretty design” on them with a chocolate glaze.

She likes to bake them for other people, and first made them a few years ago in 4-H. She also made them for a SPICE?party at school, and always for their family Thanksgiving gathering in New Orleans. Last year she entered the tarts, along with coconut lime banana bread and peach cobbler in the county fair baking contest.
She has been in the kitchen with mom and grandmother since she was young–making everything from eggs (which she loves boiled) to homemade chicken nuggets, one of her favorite things. She likes the lemon curry sauce, saying you can pour it over anything. She likes it over rice or any vegetable, also chicken and tilapia. She loves baked tilapia with rice and her favorite vegetable, broccoli. Another of her favorites dishes is Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta made in the slow cooker. “It is one of the best things to come home to,” she says.

Maggie has been participating in Kids in the Kitchen since age nine. Something she liked that they recently made were individual meatloaves in muffin pans. They put tomato sauce in the mix, rather than on top.?New things she’s learned there and in 4-H  have helped with cooking at home, and to “keep an eye on what she’s cooking.”
She does some recipe searching and suggests some dishes, but her mom, Emily, does most of that on Pinterest. When she decides to change a recipe, she said 99% of the time her substitutions work. “I just go with the gut.”

She likes baking more than anything–decorating cakes and cupcakes, has just discovered a love for molasses and Snickerdoodles cookies, and wants to make them and a homemade apple pie, when time allows.
Maggie moved here from New Orleans where she was influenced by a diversity of food. “Crawfish is so good!” Some of her favorites are Chicken Tempura, edamame and Sushi, but seafood is not. She loves Greek food, but not spicy stuff, and says she is willing to try most anything, except octopus or eel.

Baked Chicken Nuggets
1 stick of softened butter
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 1/2 tablespoons BBQ sauce
1 pinch of coarse ground black pepper
1 bag of tortilla chips
1 package of chicken tender strips (raw)
Cut chicken strips into small nugget size pieces. Mix butter, garlic, BBQ sauce and pepper in a bowl. Take the bag of chips and place them in a gallon ziploc bag, seal the bag and then use a rolling pin to crush the chips into very small pieces. Add those small pieces to another bowl. This is your “breading”. Dip each piece of chicken into the sauce mix and then dip and cover in the chips bowl. Places on a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes at 350°.

Raspberry Chocolate Tarts
1 package of sugar cookie dough
1-8 oz. package of softened cream cheese
1 jar of marshmallow cream
Smallest container of chocolate syrup
1 package of raspberries
Take a ping pong ball sized ball of sugar cookie dough and press into the bottom of each section of a lined (cupcake liners in each section) cupcake pan. Press down on the dough until it forms a “cup” in each muffin section. Bake the cookie dough as instructed on the package. While that’s baking, mix the softened cream cheese and marshmallow cream until completely blended. Once the tart shells are baked, add enough filling to fill the shells about 3/4 of the way. Add raspberries in a decorative design and then drizzle chocolate syrup over the top of the tarts.

Bacon Ranch Slowcooker Chicken
2-6 turkey bacon strips cooked and shredded
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 package powdered ranch dressing mix
1-10.75 oz can of condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup fat free sour cream
1 package of raw chicken tender strips
8 oz. pasta (rigatoni, penne, bow tie, etc…)
Combine the first five ingredients. Place frozen or defrosted raw chicken in slow cooker sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and pour the sauce over the top (do not include water as the can of soup suggests). Cook on high in a slow cooker for 3.5 hours. When done, shred the chicken with a fork. Cook the pasta separately as per the package instructions. Serve the chicken over the pasta.

Baked Tilapia
Take each tilapia filet and place in its own separate piece of tin foil that is large enough to fold together to envelop the filet. Add two pats of butter per filet. Pour enough lemon juice to cover the bottom. Add any spice you like (I use minced garlic, course ground black pepper, onion salt and parsley). Fold tin foil over the filets. Bake in the oven at 350° for approximately 20 minutes or until the thickestpiece of fish is done.

Mild Lemon Curry Sauce
1/3 cup fat-free or low-fat plain yogurt
2 tablespoons fat free or light mayo
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
In a small microwave bowl, whisk together all the ingredients. Cover and heat in the microwave for 20-30 seconds. Do not bring to a boil as the sauce will break down. Pour over any green vegetable?(broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus)….it even tastes good on baked chicken and tilapia).

Online subscribers can access an archive of all our past Look Who’s Cookin’ features at calhouncountyjournal.com

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