Weekend Images. On Wednesday.

We went to a "Dinner for 8" on Saturday evening. I was in charge of dessert and wanted to do individual fruit tarts on sugar cookies, but my beloved Whole Foods didn't have pre-made sugar cookie dough and it was cheaper and easier to buy pie crusts than the ingredients I needed for real cookie dough. I'm beginning to understand why my mom likes to buy vanilla on her Mexico mission trips.

All in all, I think the tart version came out nicely. I'm a novice (and reluctant) cook, decent baker, but fairly skilled in the presentation department, if I do say so. The one above was definitely the prettier of the two (though the perspective in the photo is funky - makes me dizzy). I was going for some kind of "plaid" on the second one (below), but realized it wasn't happening and just filled it all in with more fruit. Between the fruit and crust layers is some cream cheese (a full 8oz package for each tart, which was a little too much) with vanilla and a squirt of lime juice. The recipes I glanced at all called for some marmalade and sugar concoctions to go on top, but I skipped that in favor of sprinkling bits of cane sugar on top of whatever was in front of me throughout the prep process.

The actual dinner was a blast. We technically had 9 adults and 9 kids (somewhat surpassing the "for 8" part of the deal), but it really was a great way to get to know some new peeps.

On Friday, my car battery died (ahem, again). It wouldn't recover after being jump-started. On Sunday, I finally got around to addressing the issue, deducing that I might have to get my car towed to one of the very few places open on weekends and, after speaking to a mechanic, thinking I might have a failed alternator as well as a junky battery. All of which sounded to me like $, $, $. Enter AAA via clever and well-prepared boyfriend.

They came to me, got things started, diagnosed the problem, AND replaced my battery on-site. Convenient and only $, $. Victory!