Red, White, and Blue Cheesecake

I kinda, sorta have two jobs right now. Last year I was hired by a recruiting company called Mountain LTD to work for CenturyLink in north Seattle. Earlier this year, one of my contacts from Mountain called to say that Mountain wanted all their Engineer Assistants (my position) working from Mountain's office in Renton. I am one of two EAs who can't because everything I need is at the CenturyLink office. So we figured out a way for me and the other EA to have work to do when not in Seattle: the other EA and I each spend two days a week in Seattle.

Why am I telling you this? Because I wouldn't be posting this if that hadn't happened. One of my co-workers in the Renton office decided to have a potluck for Memorial Day on the Friday before Memorial Day. As soon as she told me about it I immediately started searching for patriotic-colored desserts. As much as I wanted to, I had to stay away from desserts with fruit since I would be doing my shopping the Saturday before and most fruit (including strawberries, the red part of the dessert) doesn't last long. I finally decided on a three "layer" cheesecake from Tablespoon, a community of and for foodies.

Old-Fashioned Cola Cake

I'm addicted to a lot of foods and drinks that are bad for me. Soda is one of them. So when I offered to bake dessert for the BBQ my parents were having for Mother's Day, I was intrigued by the Old-Fashioned Cola Cake I found in The Cake Mix Doctor during my search (because of the lemon bars for my mom I figured I should find a quick recipe). To keep things simple I stuck with just the cake and decorated with a can (or two) of frosting.

Lemon-Coconut Squares

I suck at giving presents. I give something that I think will be great for the recipient but at least 90% of the time, the person ends up not using it. So for my mom's Mother's Day present, I decided on something that would be foolproof - I'd bake her something. I focused on foods with coconut in them since she's one of two people in the family who likes it. I finally settled on Lemon-Coconut Squares from the Snack Works website (mainly Nabisco products, like Oreos and Honey Maid graham crackers as well as other cookie, cracker, gum, and candy brands).