Easter Cooking Marathon

It seems like the day before any holiday tends to become a cooking marathon.  It just happens.  There are all sorts of side dishes and desserts -- especially desserts -- to make ahead.  It makes the day of the holiday much easier.  So, today was my Easter cooking marathon.  And it snowed this morning.  Welcome to New England in April.

I made hummus this morning.  We were going to have BLTs for lunch, but discovered that there was only two pieces of bacon.  Not so helpful for BLTs.  So then there was about enough turkey for two sandwiches.  So I was going to wait and make hummus and have hummus with cheese and tomato and lettuce.  Except my roasted red peppers were moldy.  And I was pretty sure that the little store in the center of town wasn't going to have roasted red peppers and I thought I would have to to roast my own peppers.  Thankfully, they did have peppers for me.  But I waited till after lunch anyway.  Otherwise, the hummus went pretty well.

Then it was time to make cupcakes.  The recipe (thanks to SLI for giving me this recipe!) called for any chocolate cupcakes.  I didn't have a "regular" recipe, so I found one in one of my cookbooks, and I went with it.   It came out really well.  I think I have a regular recipe now.  Making cupcakes from scratch isn't really all that much harder.  Seriously.

Then, I took a break from cupcakes . . . to make guacamole.  I've never liked guacamole, I guess because I assumed that it would taste like avocado.  But, amazingly enough, it doesn't.  It's kind of like the Mexican food version of hummus.  So, of course, I've discovered that I have been missing out on it for a long time.  It's so green.  It's kind of awesome.

Guacamole
From Mom

4 large avocados, peeled, seeded and mashed
 3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. lime juice
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small tomato, chopped

Combine all ingredients except  tomatoes and mix well. Fold in tomatoes.  Chill.

So, then I had to switch back to dessert mode.  There's nothing like alternating baking cupcakes with making garlic-y dips.  These cupcakes are filled with Nutella -- only the best spread EVER -- and I was planning on trying to use my filling frosting tip to fill them again, until mom stopped me and told me she had a new way for me to try filling them. She came down with a cupcake corer.

I had never used a cupcake corer before.  I am a convert.  I love my cupcake corer.  It makes life so easy.

And I've decided that I should market the little "plugs" that come out as "Cupcake holes".  Seriously.  Doughnut holes sell, so why not cupcake holes?

The frosting was pretty easy to make too.  It says it generously frosts 24 cupcakes, but I halved the recipe and, I think at least, generously frosted 17 cupcakes with plenty to spare.  So, that's a lot of frosting on each cupcake if twice that really is supposed to frost only 24.  Yikes.

But the frosting kind of became like a dry mix before I added the milk.  It was weird.  And the whisk attachment was a bad choice for the mixer.  Oh well.  It worked in the end.

My aunt sent me a new cupcake platter -- it perfectly fit my dozen filled cupcakes.  Perfect.  Fitting it in the fridge . . . well, that was a different story.

Then, of course there were the eggs to color.  Hooray! 

 Yay for vibrant egg dyes.

Happy Easter!