Recap: 2 weeks ago

A friend who lives in my building invited me over for a cook-out last minute; fortunately I had used the better portion of that Sunday stewing over recipes to be tried and compiling pantry ingredients and fresh foods about to enter that murky territory known as Past Best By... and I had put together a simple white bean salad, a potato salad with vinegar instead of mayo, and the carrot cake mix package (so cute!) that my mom had gotten me for Christmas (hey, it's just dry ingredients and powdered sugar, calm down).
No-nonsense white beans, red onions and vinaigrette a-ready:

Mix-ins for carrot cake. May I point out that this cake 'kit' still required almost an hour of carrot grating by hand? At least, it did for me this time, because I didn't think to try out the grating blade on the food processor. Next time!

The final product, on the lovely Irish-designed, Asian-assembled glass cake stand I had just purchased from Marshall's for $10! Whoop it up for a good deal- one of those simple luxuries that you know you'll enjoy every time you use it (even if it's only 4 times a year). :-) This stuff was good. It was also my first attempt at frosting. Gold star!