Difference between Cupcakes and Muffins.

What's the difference between cupcakes and muffins?
First thing that comes to mind is that a cupcake has some form of icing.
Once the icing is off, it can be slightly blurry to which one is which.

Muffins are quick breads whereas cupcakes are little cupped cakes made of cake batter.

Muffins are also a quick bread in the way that they usually cook in more oil than cake

and because of the way they cook in the oil/fat- muffins are usually more coarse. 

When it comes to cup cakes- the butter is smoother than oil and with the mixture of butter 

and sugar together, it actually creates very tiny air bubbles in the batter to which when the

cake batter is baked- the bubbles expand giving a finer texture than the muffin.

Muffins are more of a breakfast food as well- although I'm sure I'm not the only person

who has ever had a cup cake for breakfast! ...................................SWEET!

Buffalo Chicken Meatballs

Buffalo Sauce.........................................................Yum!
Simple, yet cultivated to make it a little different than the norm.
Make some buffalo chicken meatballs!

Melt a little butter in a pan and then drizzle some "Franks Hot Sauce" ...
once the butter has melted-   then add a sprinkle of a sweetener.
(sugar, Splenda, Agave...which ever one you have on hand)
Once you've made the buffalo sauce, set it aside.

Take some ground chicken, salt & pepper, and  mix the ground chicken
with a drizzle of blue cheese dressing.
(You can add blue cheese crumbles if you'd like as well.)
Next, add the buffalo sauce that you have already made and set aside.
Once you've mixed the sauce in with the ground chicken-
roll them into balls and cook them in the oven (about 20 minutes)
or until they brown or you can saute them on the stove in a pan
until they get brown.  Pretty simple huh!  Serve it on rolls or eat the meatballs
on a bed of lettuce , rice or noodles.

Soggy, Moist, Damp Lettuce

A head of lettuce is easier to keep than the lettuce that comes in containers
but... sometimes, if you're getting baby lettuces such as spring mix or baby spinach-
you have to get your lettuce in the container. The negative is that they get
water droplets quite quickly which makes your veggies spoil quicker.
(Just like the water droplets you can  see the in the container of spring mix I just opened.

A great way to solve this little problem is to take a paper towel and place it
on the top... right under the lid and then the paper towels will capture
the water rather than soak your lettuce!

Cleaning with the Natural Stuff

Sometimes you have to take full afternoon or even a full day to just
do some SERIOUS cleaning. We wipe, sweep and dust in general but...
sometimes you really need to use all the vacuum attachments and get everywhere.

I like to use things that are already in the kitchen to help with my cleaning.
Not only do these things make it clean but nothing is better than the SMELL of CLEAN
after scrubbing away for the afternoon especially the scent of lemon or other oils.

Here are a few tips.

All-Purpose Scrub 
(good for kitchen counters, sinks, floors, bathroom sinks, tubs, stove tops, and top of vent)
1/2 a lemon (I cut the lemon in half, sqeeze it and then toss it into the little cleaning bucket)
1/2 cup baking soda
a good drizzle of liquid soap (liquid dish washing soap from your kitchen works perfectly)
Although  this is a scrub... I usually add a little bit of water so I can move it around.

Baking soda (aka sodium bicarbonate)
is a good deodorizer and is a gentle scrub so it won't harm
certain types of counter tops; it also softens hard water stains,
and polishes shiny surfaces like stainless steel without scratching.

Lemons are a good deodorizer, they help in removing stains and also help clean grease.

Distilled white vinegar works as a deodorizer, disinfectant, breaks up dirt,
grease, mold and soap scum.

Window Cleaner (it's convenient  to put this into a spray bottle)
1/2 teaspoon of dishwashing soap  (preferably plant-based liquid soap if you use it)

3 TBS of distilled white vinegar

2 cups of water

Floor Cleaner 
1/8 cup liquid soap
1/8 cup distilled white vinegar
1 gallon of water
10 drops of plant oil 

Olive oil is great to use to polish wood furniture and fixtures. 
Don't go crazy with it... but you can add a little into a bowl and kind of dip your rag
into the olive oil and gently wipe and polish away!
Aromatic plant oils (sold almost everywhere in the cleaning aisle) such as rosemary, lavender,
eucalyptus, just to name a few are also good to use with the olive oil to get that natural plant oil and usually smells really fresh and natural which is a great bonus!
(some people are allergic to aromatic oils though)

Egg in the Hole

What's great about eggs is that you can eat them any time of the day. Matter of fact,
almost all  breakfast food is good any time of the day or night! I like to take some bread,
(I decided to use cinnamon raisin this time) and cut a hole in the bread.

You can use a small bowl or something that you can just simply push into the bread.

They don't have to be perfect holes. The circle shaped holes that came from
the center of the slices of bread go to a very special place. The special place is
called your mouth! That's also the great thing about cooking food,
having fun creating things but eating it- not just when you are done but
WHILE you are making your creations!

Put your bread on an oven safe pan with a small drizzle of oil.
Carefully crack your egg in the hole of the bread.
I add a sprinkle of salt and then place it in the small toaster oven.
(You can use a regular oven as well of course) 
I usually bake it for about 9-12 minutes or so.
Then, I like to enjoy my "Egg in the hole" !

Gummy Bears getting WILD!

What do you get when you take...

some tooth picks and

some vodka.... AND................ some gummy bears...

 

You get some gummy bears gone wild!

Make it a Taco Night!

The hardest part of making tacos for taco night is...
getting crunchy shells that are not stale.  I've purchased crunchy shells from half a dozen grocery stores, with the date never being expired... but they are still always stale!
I hope you will have better luck getting crunchy shells!

Making the filling for taco night is quite simple. For the meat filling:
I simply dice up some onions and and let them sweat in the pan with a little oil.
I grate in a clove of garlic and once the onions have had it in the sauna...
I add the ground beef and fry the 2 together while adding a little S&P.
(salt and pepper) Lastly, I squeeze some Krafts BBQ sauce. (It has to be Krafts though-
I've tried many different brands- from expensive to homemade etc...
but Krafts always wins the taste test when it comes to taco meat filling sauce.
I like to have separate little bowls for the meat, shredded lettuce,
shredded cheese, sour cream and lastly a simple tomato salsa that consists of
diced tomatoes, chopped cilantro, minced onions, a sprinkle of salt and the
juice of half a lime. That's it... fairly simple to make with a rating of
9.3 out of 10!