Not so vegetarian spaghetti sauce & bald cupcakes

On my birthday, I always ask for spaghetti and bald cupcakes. It might seem strange if you don't know the full story. My mom loves this one recipe from a vegetarian cookbook, but likes to go off script. She adds ground beef. I'm sure that the author of the cookbook, would have a beef with mom. We always give mom a hard time and laugh about it. The recipe is from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood cookbook.

On this occasion, I will also normally ask for bald cupcakes, that just means two cupcakes set aside for me without frosting. One year I had said this phrase and it just stuck. Growing up, I never really had a sweet tooth, scrape off the frosting, and give it to one of my childhood friends or to mom. What is funny now, as I get older, I am normally the one who is frosting the other cupcakes, because I can make the frosting look cute with a little swirl or star.