Veggie Hot Dog Soup w/ PB...B

Last night's dinner was grilled PB & B.
Peanut butter and banana. It might sound a little
different if you've never tried it but it's quick, pretty tasty
and easy to make and it doesn't require too many ingredients...
especially if you haven't gone food shopping.
Melt a little butter in a pan, and place your bread with peanut butter in the pan.
Add slices of banana and then place the other piece
of bread with peanut butter on it. Once it has browned- flip it over.
As I was saying... it can't get easier or cheaper than that!

And some easy soup with that! Dice some onions, and throw it into a pot with a drizzle
of olive oil. Add your carrots and celery and chicken stock.
Lastly, pour in a small can of tomato sauce and add some sliced hot dogs along with
some garlic powder, black pepper, paprika and some chopped chives- fresh or dry.
Pour it into one of your favorite soup bowls and enjoy with or without croutons.

Autumn is here...

As the Autumn weather  is now officially here...  for us, the people
living on the East Coast of the United States. It's getting brisk and
extremely chilly for those every other morning walks before work. brrr
As we start to bring out the scarves and sweaters-
I think it will be interesting to make October a soup month!
I'm looking forward to making and enjoying some nice warm soup.
I hear soup can make people slim down a little bit as well!
You can't go wrong with that... yummy soup AND shedding the love handles.
Stay tuned for soups, soups and some more soups....!

Food Buzz Featured Publisher

As Autumn has officially arrived and my food blog's journey has reached a little over
6 months- I have received my "FB" letters today. I have become a featured publisher
on Food Buzz!

                                                           

It's  pretty exciting and I'm looking forward to many more food related journeys!   I am also getting ready for my class this weekend. I will be teaching a dumplings class... and ambitious me... has a recipe sheet to cover 12 different types of dumplings in 2 hours!  We'll see what happens.  I also teach an Asian Fusion class as well- at  mainlineschoolnight.org 

If you happen to read my blog posts through a feed or reader: if you get a chance-
click on letscultivatefood.blogspot.com and check out my cleaned up page!
Thanks for reading my blog posts about food thus far.  I don't know who all is following
my blog- but I will say it's pretty cool to know that there are people whom I don't even know
that read my babbling... along with people I know and when they come up to me and
inform me that they made something found on my food blog...   pretty cool!

Simple Panko Tilapia and Zucchini

I took some Miso and watered it down and brushed it onto a Tilapia fillet.

Followed by Panko breading both sides of the Tilapia and then carefully pan frying it
with a little olive oil until the bread crumbs started to brown and crust a little.

I also took a zucchini and sliced it into circle slices. I dipped the zucchini rounds
into some egg and Panko bread crumbs and then fried them until brown.

It was a simple but yummy Panko breaded dish.

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!