The Easiest, Fanciest Appetizer EVER

This was in Real Simple this month, and ya'll, no kidding, it was REAL SIMPLE. Magically easy. And it looks fancy! All my friends were impressed when I took to a dinner party on Saturday night. I don't remember what Real Simple called it and I can't check because I had to memorize the recipe while I read it in the checkout line at the Teeter. There wasn't room in my brain for the name! EASY, FANCY, CHEESE APPETIZER (All good things)

• Log of goat cheese (or other soft, pliable cheese in log form)
• Bag of dried cranberries
• Bag of nuts (the REAL recipe specified pistachios, I opted for pecans)
• Parchment paper
• Shallow baking dish (gratin dish or a pyrex brownie dish, a cookie sheet works too.)

Get all your ingredients together, it's a lot, I know. Let the goat cheese warm up a bit so it's pliable. Tear up a big sheet of parchment or wax paper, and lay it your shallow dish/cookie sheet. Open up your log of goat cheese and lay it on the wax paper. If your nuts aren't already sliced, chopped, or otherwise broken into pieces, crush them up. Throw a big handful of crushed nuts over the cheese log. Throw an equal handful of cranberries over the log. Basically, you want to mush the nuts and cranberries into the cheese log until the cheeses is totally covered and looking festive. You can then wrap the cheese in the parchment paper and refrigerate until needed (should be ok for a day or overnight). Serve with fancy crackers or fancy slices of toasted baguette. Who doesn't love cheese?