I don't celebrate Easter, for the simple fact that I am not a Christian. In fact, I am not anything (except woman, mother, artist, etc) but nothing that pertains to anything of the religious persuasion. That being said when speaking to my parents on Friday, my father intimated that I was the Easter equivalent of the Grinch. He reminded that was I to be present this weekend in Tahoe, I would have received an Easter basket. Our family tradition was to hunt for our wicker baskets that the 'bunny' would cleverly hide throughout the house. They were often filled with our family favourites; plastic eggs with brightly coloured jelly beans, cadburys mini eggs, a Reese's peanut butter cup and my eternal weakness, a large See's Bordeaux egg. He contended that I was a killjoy and should allow the little one a small taste of chocolate. I wish I could tell you that she has never had any chocolate, but apparently there was one incident when I was away in Krakow. She opened a kitchen cabinet, found a large partially unwrapped chocolate bar and left teeth marks from here to Timbuktu.
Seeing as how we were attending Sunday dinner at my in-laws complete with visiting cousins, I decided that I would dye some hard boiled eggs for the kids to look for in the garden in lieu of the usual sugary sweets. There were several very cool DIY websites that offered simple instructions using things most of us would have around the house. Unfortunately all I had was wine and red currants. I figured that would make a purply-red egg, but I forgot that the eggs here are brown! So instead my glorious hard boiled eggs were an even darker shade of brown and resembled the chocolate eggs they are supposed to substitute! When that project failed, I thought that mini cupcakes for the kids might be the way forward. I adapted a vanilla thyme recipe to create a peach vanilla thyme cupcake. I garnished them with a cream cheese frosting and a strawberry for good measure. After all my hard work my little cupcake didn't even want to try her cupcake. Too bad - everyone else loved them!
