It’s been a while since a lunch post appeared!

Have you ever boiled a bunch of eggs and wondered what to do with them? Easter, Labor Day, and other holidays come to mind. This egg salad is a basic recipe that substitutes the celery for green peppers and is on pumpernickel/rye swirl bread . Going with the Easter theme (only 5 months late, right?), this lunch was packed in a Miffy sandwich box with a carrot cake cupcake, some edamame, and a fruit cup.

The cupcake packed above was from my “mother-in-law”. It’s a coincidence because I made a bunch of carrot cake cupcakes too! I stopped by a local cake supply store and got some sugar carrots as decoration, but other than that, this recipe is simple and timeless.

I used the extra batter to bake mini-cupcakes. I mixed a little green food coloring and some shaved coconut to make some “easter grass”, then decorated them with jelly beans for eggs. An ice cube tray was a perfect vessel for transport.

This past April I went to my parents’ for Easter. We had some Hawai’ian bread, sweet potatoes, ham, scalloped potatoes, bacon baked beans, and corn. I’m not religious, though my parents are a bit. They know I just come for the food ^_^ I tried to propose a lamb or rabbit for Easter dinner next year but that didn’t seem to fly. It was hard enough to get them to try a different turkey last Thanksgiving!

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

By nicole Published: September 16, 2012

• Yield: 24 cupcakes (24 Servings)

These cupcakes will make you love eating vegetables. The tangy cream cheese frosting is a great pairing. This recipe is based off of Martha Stewart's Carrot Cake, though I usually halve the recipe to yield 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients

• 1 pound carrots peeled & grated
• 3 eggs room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 1½ cups vegetable oil
• ⅓ cup buttermilk or substitute milk & vinegar mixture
• 1½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
• cream cheese frosting

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 standard muffin tins with paper liners. In a bowl, whisk together carrots, eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk, and vanilla.
2. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Stir flour mixture into carrot mixture until well combined.
3. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until testers inserted into centers come out clean, 23 to 28 minutes.
4. Let cool in tins on wire racks, 10 minutes. Turn out cupcakes onto wire racks, and let cool completely.
5. Frost cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

• Cuisine: Cupcakes