Container gardening

Corn, yellow & green beans, tomatoes, green peppers. Squash, zucchini, rubarb. Carrots and radishes. These are some of the vegetables my family would grow in our garden when I was growing up. Oh, how I would have a love/hate relationship with that garden. "Hey girls, can you go out & pick the beans?" "Daaaad, do we haaave to?" But the food, it was always amazing & the fresh veggies were plentiful all summer long.

Its strange, the things you miss about your childhood. I never thought I would miss those gardening days. But having spent a few years away from those fresh foods straight out of the backyard, I miss it. I grew tired of paying the prices for food from the supermarket, food that sometimes isn't even of a decent quality. But what is a girl to do when she lives in an apartment?

Container gardening!

I recently planted lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, rosemary, chives, basil, parsley, mint, & catnip on my 3rd floor balcony. No worries about pesky animals up here getting to my plants before I do. Even though the plants are on a balcony, they get sunlight all morning. I do have to water them often (at least every other day or 2 depending on how hot it is outside....I can always tell by how wilted my lettuce looks).

The plants are doing quite well in their containers. No fruits on the tomatoes or peppers yet, but I have used pretty much everything else. The lettuce is actually doing very well, it loves the colder than normal weather that has been present.


Hopefully the plants will do well all summer long. Will update with foods that I make that include the herbs or veggies! :)

Nemo enjoying the catnip

Rainbow cupcakes

Introductory blog posts are for suckers. I will probably write one in a few posts. For now, I would like to write about the awesome cupcakes that I made last week for my birthday.


My mission: to make Funfetti/confetti cupcakes with rainbow frosting & sprinkles.

The result? Success!

I used a basic run-of-the-mill boxed cake mix (funfetti style) & made homemade frosting.

My ingredients:
Prep & bake the cupcakes according to the package directions. My specific cake mix called for 1 & 1/4c. water, 1/3 c. oil (I used canola oil), & 3 eggs, mixed with beaters on a low speed for a couple of minutes.
Then pour into the pans, approx. 2/3 full. Good tip: I use a 1/3c. measure as a scoop (I have one that has pour sides). Very handy & less mess when transferring into the cups. Follow the box directions for baking. I baked mine at 350 degrees for 18 minutes (the lowest time bracket) & let them cool completely in the pans. Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting.

That was the easy part. Now for the frosting.

Use your favorite buttercream frosting recipe. The recipe I used is here

If you clicked on that link, you are probably thinking to yourself "Holy frosting, Batman!". Yep, that recipe makes a ton. I halved the recipe & still had quite a bit of frosting leftover (however, I wouldn't recommend cutting the recipe into thirds unless you like math. I like to KISS (keep it simple, stupid), so just halved it & tossed the leftovers). Another Good tip: I don't know about you, but I was unable to find heavy whipping cream in oz. I found a pint container & used good ole trusty Google to tell me that 3 oz (the havled amount) is roughly equal to 0.4c. So, I used a 1/3 of a cup & threw in a little more. I just added the cream until the frosting wasn't too thick. One of those "use your better judgement" things, but the 1/3 of a cup is a good place to start. Also, since you are coloring the frosting, don't worry about using non-clear vanilla. Isn't going to matter.

After you have your frosting whipped up, divide it equally into 3 separate bowls & grab your food coloring (I used yellow, red, & blue gels). My red turned out a sort of pink-ish red & refused to turn a red-red no matter how much I added, so I gave up & left it pink.

Now take your handy decorating bag, insert the decorating tip of your choice (I used a star pattern, #18), making sure there is a good seal around the tip & that you cut off the end of the bag. Now add stripes of frosting. Rolling the bag down 1/2 way or more & then moving up makes it a heck of a lot easier to layer the frosting. Don't worry about getting it exact or colors mixing slightly. Twist the top end of the bag & you are ready to frost!
I frosted in a swirling pattern, starting at the outsides of the cupcake & swirling inward. As you can see, it makes a very cool pattern as the colors blend! :) Good tip: I should probably mention that it would be easier for you to remove the cupcakes from the pan before frosting them. My brain apparently forgot about that small step in my excitement, but I just carefully pulled the cupcakes out of the pan with the aid of a toothpick around the outside of the cupcake.

Now just add some colorful sprinkles on top & you are done! Voila, rainbow cupcakes! Very impressive & yummy to boot!
Note: Credit for my idea & tips to get me started goes to Robin Sue over at Big Red Kitchen