Saturday smells like... Cake and crostinis

I've been reading blogs regularly for a couple of years now. I have several that I check daily, some that I used to read daily but now just check periodically, and others that I only check sporadically because I know new posts are few and far between. My blog used to be one of those blogs. Last month, it became a blog that could be checked daily, but finding a new post was still kind of hit-or-miss. You might find two new posts; you might find one; you might find the one you read the day before. Suddenly, aspects of my favorite blogs that I never thought about before have become apparent. For example, I know that when I click on the blogs I like best, regardless of the time of day, there will be fresh content for me to read. This week, I've been making a conscious effort to mimic this behavior. How? By writing my posts a day early and scheduling them to publish early the next morning. It works really well, because even if I don't have a chance to write a post until late in the evening, I'm not late. I'm still writing a post a day (because there's no way I'm waking up at 3:00 a.m. to beat the publish time), and I know that our readers are getting fresh content whatever time they pull up our blog.

Great, right? Wrong. I came up with an awesome theme for Saturdays that is totally dependent on what happens on Saturday. Not Friday evening. So I don't exactly know what I'm going to do with this theme, because I feel wrong writing about something as though it has already happened (because this isn't exactly a creative fiction blog...). Last Saturday, I was able to write about Thursday's supper. This week, I'll be writing about the food we're cooking on Friday with the intent to serve it on Saturday. So it's not exactly untrue, since Saturday will still smell like these things. Anyhow, just wanted to start the post with an understanding of where we are.

So how does the MP smell like cake and crostinis? Well, our friends Becky and Daniel's little boy Superman turned five this week, and his birthday party is Sunday. Superman received a tractor cake pan for Christmas, and his parents asked if I'd use the pan to make a cake for his party. Of course I jumped all over the chance. And then realized that, A. I've already overbooked my Saturday, B. I've never actually decorated a tractor and have no idea how to do it. Solution? Bake the cake Friday night and decorate Sunday before the party. Oh, and the solution to B? Well, I'd never decorated a sheep before I did the cake for Superman's little brother's baptism, either, and that turned out okay. Here is a sneak peek at the cake in pre-decorated form. And to answer my mom's question, the dark spots are mini-chocolate morsels, as Superman wanted a chocolate chip cake. Not exactly sure why it decided to post in portrait mode, either...

As for crostinis, I'm the hostess chair for my DAR meeting tomorrow (Saturday), and when I agreed last August to serve in this position, I begged J to just cater the meeting for me. He agreed, and spent Friday evening grocery shopping, roasting a pork loin, prepping bacon-tomato cups, and making crostinis. I jumped in to help make my personal favorite Brie-Pepper Jelly Kisses. Which actually got slightly modified this time to use a cranberry-jalapeno jelly we had on hand. Much spicier than a traditional pepper jelly, but delicious! I think my DAR ladies are going to be rather impressed!

For a taste of what the MP smells like this Saturday, feel free to try out the Brie-Pepper Jelly Kisses for yourself:

Ingredients:
2/3 lb. brie
1 jar pepper jelly
2 boxes phyllo mini-cups

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cube brie, and place in frozen mini-cups. Top with small drop of jelly, and place on a baking sheet. Bake for five-seven minutes. Let cool, and enjoy!