Happy April Fools Day, You Fools!

Hope you all have some really good jokes going today! We had April Fools dinner last night since Darin is working today. I had the food all ready to go in the oven last night, and waited and waited and waited for the oven to preheat. I finally opened it to see if it was feeling hot. No heat, just lots of gas smell. Ha ha, funny joke. Broken oven. While I carried the food to our neighbor's oven, Darin dismantled ours. And being the handy husband that he is, he was able to fix it. Good thing, because our warranty just ran out exactly four months ago. Isn't that the way it goes? We had cupcakes for dinner (meatloaf with mashed potato frosting), biscuits with ketchup (strawberry jam in the ketchup bottle that we just happened to finish off at lunchtime), and chocolate milk (pudding...this was so funny when Madison tried to pour it). Darin asked me how long it took me to put the jam in the ketchup bottle. Not long, I just did it while the oven was preheating! I found the recipe for the cupcakes a few years ago, and have made them every year since. Besides the fun, they are really good and not hard to make. Madison asks for them all year. Here's the recipe if you want to try them tonight:

April Fools' Colorful Cupcakes

1 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 egg
1/2 tsp celery salt (I didn't have this-I used salt and celery seed)
1/4 tsp pepper

3 cups mashed potatoes (Real are better, but I used instant)
food coloring

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 12 muffin tin cups with foil bake cups.
In a large bowl, mix together first six ingredients until well combined. Divide the mixture evenly among the lined cups (the liners should be about 3/4 full).
Place the filled muffin tins on cookie sheets and bake the cupcakes for about 15 minutes or until cooked through.
Divide the mashed potatoes among three small bowls and stir in a few drops of food coloring into each batch to create blue, yellow, and pink pastel frostings. Spread a generous dollop on each cupcake. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Check out this blog for a fun April Fool's video, and a contest! http://lilypstudio.typepad.com/lily_p_studio_and_design_/