Happy Mother's Day & Strawberry Cupcakes

Happy Mother's Day! Once I made my way downstairs for breakfast today, I was greeted by this:

From Family, Friends and Food

My Husband is very cute, huh? I think so! My Boys gave me wonderful homemade cards and books that I truly adore and will keep and let them see again when they are all grown up.

We've had a busy weekend between heading to dinner at Red Robin on Friday night - just love their burgers and their fries are my favorite! Saturday was supposed to be baseball for both boys, but all the rain left the fields too soggy to play. Which meant the day was freed up to do other things. Since we had dinner plans with another family that we are very good friends with, I set to work making some side dishes and dessert to take a long. I'll share the other dishes I made throughout the coming week.

When given the chance to make dessert to take somewhere, I like to try to find something that I know the kids will enjoy as well as the adults. So, when I saw the Strawberry Layer Cake in the May 2009 issue of Cooking Light I just knew that would work nicely. I decided to make it into cupcakes instead because the kids would like it more and I could do the icing 2 different ways - one with the Grand Marnier and one without for the kids.

From Family, Friends and Food

It's funny, but every time I make a dessert that has some component that makes it red, I think of My Grandma. Red was her favorite color and I just know she would have enjoyed these cupcakes. With the pureed strawberries and a touch of red food coloring they really do look quite adorable. My Mom also made this amazing Red Devil's Food cake for us growing up, so I guess red tinted desserts are a family thing for us. So, these cuppycakes are for you, Mom, and my sweet Grandma who I always had that special relationship with as I grew up. I miss her everyday.

As you can see, I've been playing with the Wilton decorating tips again. This is yet another challenge to myself to learn how to use them and make pretty cupcakes. Still working on it and will have to pick up a couple of other tips to try some other ideas out.

I also have to take a moment to tell my niece, Miss V, Congratulations! Why? Because she just graduated college with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry! We are all so very proud of her and that huge accomplishment!

Finally, something fun that I hope you will all join in with me on this week. I'm hosting Presto Pasta Nights (click HERE for the rules) for Ruth at Once Upon a Feast! So, get into the kitchen and make a pasta dish and please do share so that we can all be inspired and drooling over our keyboards on Friday! How do you participate? Well, it's quite simple...

From Family, Friends and Food

1. Prepare a dish with some type of noodle in it, blog about it and take a picture if you can.

2. Include the logo in your post, if you can.

3. Link back to Family, Friends and Food and Presto Pasta Nights in your post.

4. Email a link to your post and attach a .jpg file of your photo to me at patsy_k (at) verizon (dot) net and copy Ruth at ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com

So, what are you waiting for? Get in the kitchen and make up a great pasta dish to share with us! I'll be posting my dish by Monday - so, come on back and see if my Pasta Cooking Challenge is going better this time around.