Vegetable cupcakes

I've been dying to try these cupcakes for ages, and the last day of school seemed an appropriate place for such a summery theme.

The base is chocolate frosting coated in crushed oreo cookie "earth"; the vegetables are simply starburst candies molded into shapes, with green frosting dipped cornflake "leaves" and green M&M "peas." It was all surprisingly quick and easy to pull together, and the kids (36 of them in both my children's classes) loved them.

Credit to "Hello Cupcake" by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson for the idea.

Signs of summer

Despite grey skies, summer is here. The bluejays and squirrels are squabbling in the back yard, and in the front the poppies are opening.

Lupins

One day when I was about 16, I saw a beautiful bunch of roses in town, well out of reach of my sixteen-year old purse. Later that day, after I had told her about them, my mother drove back into town and surprised me with those roses. I still remember that they were the beautiful pale antiquey pink kind.

Yesterday I walked into the house from work to find another memorable floral gift from my generous mom - this time a striking, bold spiral of lupins. I'm particularly fascinated with the deep red ones, which I've never found at a nursery. I have planted blue ones in my garden more than once before, but sadly the moles (or something) seems to enjoy eating them. So, for now, I'll enjoy the ones on my kitchen table.