I’m not the most gifted crafter of soup. I have a propensity for cooking half of the ingredients to mush, and almost always a bad case of brain fog overtakes whenever I try to imagine what spices might go with what vegetables might go with what meats. For these reasons, I stick to recipes when making soup.

However, last week I defied all my norms and created a soup to be proud of, a soup to write home about, a soup to blog about—and here it is!

I was sad when it was all gone. I think of it fondly. I need to make more.

This soup kind of just happened into being. Earlier in the week when I was scanning my freezers as a first step in my weekly menu planning routine, I discovered a quart of frozen white beans. There were also a few more containers of Swiss chard, and I had a pound of ground pork stashed in the refrigerator freezer. I tapped my lower lip, thought hard, and proclaimed that a dinner of chili was in our near future.

When I got down to work frying and chopping and stirring, I discovered a few more goodies that needed to be used up: a half quart jar of frozen multicolored sweet pepper strips, a half cup of white wine, and some celery. I debated whether or not the chili should be cream-based or tomato-based, but after a bit more lower lip tapping, I opted for the later and dumped in a pint of roasted tomato sauce and a quart of stewed tomatoes. (I also added the dregs of a jar of pizza sauce—good, but not a recipe requirement). The smells were intoxicating, the flavor was swoony.

The soup was fortifying, bracing from the chili powder and rich from the roasted tomato sauce. In fact, I’m convinced that it’s the roasted tomato sauce that transformed this soup from good to great. I think this is the first soup I’ve added the sauce to, but it will certainly not be the last. From now on I’ll be dumping pints of the glorious goodness into as many soups and sauces as I can concoct. It’s powerful stuff. Do yourself a favor and can yourself a boatload of it this summer.

A word about using frozen Swiss chard. When I put it up, I just wash the leaves, chop them up, and pop them in the freezer. The thawed leaves have a musty odor that we all find rather repulsive. However, I’ve found a way to fix the problem: dump the container of frozen leaves into a saucepan, add an inch of water, bring it to a boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Drain well, pressing on the leaves to get rid of all the juice, and then proceed with your recipe as normal. The flavor is delicious. (My mother reports that blanching her chard before freezing eliminates that moldy flavor. So with a little extra work, either pre- or post-freezing, you’ll be good to go.)

Ground Pork and White Bean Chili

You can substitute the white wine with chicken broth or water. And if you have no roasted tomato sauce, simply add some regular tomato sauce, or an extra pint of canned tomatoes.

This is a convenience meal all the way, baby: it’s made in a crock pot, and the leftovers freeze well, too. Whee!

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound ground pork
1 cup diced bell peppers (red, green, orange, yellow)
2 ribs celery, diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup white wine
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 quart cooked small white beans
1 quart chopped chard, cooked and drained
1 quart stewed tomatoes
1 pint roasted tomato sauce
salt and black pepper, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a heavy soup pot. Add the pork and cook till brown and sizzling. Transfer the pork to a crock pot.

Add the peppers, celery, onion, and garlic to the fat that’s left in the pan and saute for 10 minutes. Add the white wine and simmer for another minute. Dump everything into the crock pot, making sure to scrape out all the flavorful drippings.

Add the remaining ingredients to the crock pot and cook for 4-6 hours (cook it on high till it bubbles and then turn it down to cook on low for the rest of the time).

Serve with cornbread or buttered toast.

A few weeks back I got the sweetest email from a friend of yore, a girl that I went to summer camp with and then college. She was writing to tell me that she reads my blog and uses my recipes—two bits of information that always catch me off-guard and give me a little thrill. Aside from a handful of readers who leave lovely comments I have no idea if people actually read my blog. Sure, I occasionally glance at the ticking numbers on my site meter, but they don’t mean much—for all I know, the majority of hits are by people searching for enlightenment and when google lands them on my blog they suffer pangs of bitterest disappointment and disillusionment which leads to a falling out with all search engines. I hope that doesn’t happen, of course, but I have no way of knowing. (Yes, there are high-techy ways of finding out, but I am not inclined towards any techy-ness, and certainly not any HIGH techy-ness.)

So when Bethany (for that is the name of the aforementioned sweet girl) emailed me and told me that she actually uses some of my recipes in her CSA newsletter, I was first surprised, second tickled, and third addled. Because—hello!—does this means there are people actually reading and cooking from this little blog? I mean, that’s what I want them to do, but whoa, dude! All my shortcomings—the stupid things I’ve said and done, the outrages claims I’ve made—it’s like getting caught with my pants down, and just because I’m used to walking around in public with my pants down doesn’t mean I don’t still blush when someone looks at me, know what I mean?

You don’t?

Um, okay. Forget I said anything, okay? (Geesh.)

I am slip-sliding all over this post, the point of which (yes! there’s a point!) is cake.

Cake was the point of Bethany’s email, too. See, she was after a recipe. This is what she said, “I still remember a particular mint cake that your mother sent down to school once – a three-layer white cake with flecks of green that was dense and sweet and amazing. I had the recipe and lost it. I’d be grateful for any leads on this – but no hurry.”

I immediately knew exactly what she was talking about. It’s not every day that you eat a mint cake with real mint in it, and I clearly remember the first time I had this cake. It was at a cousin’s outdoor wedding up in Pennsylvania (my husband and I were a couple months shy of getting married ourselves), and at the reception, we had this cake.

Come to think of it, I don’t remember much of anything about the wedding or the cake. It’s more of a fact lodged in my brain than an actual visceral memory. I know we had this mint cake, and I know it was delicious, and I know the wedding was lovely. But that’s all I know. The end.

In order to bake this cake, I had to beg some dried mint from my mom. She brought me the last of her mint which didn’t measure quite up to the full three tablespoons, but it had to do.

And do it did, just fine.

I iced the cake with cream fluff frosting, but any butter frosting would be fine. However, I think this elegant cake would be super classy served plain (perhaps baked in a bundt pan), dressed only with sugared strawberries or red raspberries, whipped cream optional.

Here’s what happens when I serve my husband his first piece of cake. I pull up a stool, sit down, and then stare at him as he eats.

“What do you think?” I ask.

Silently, he chews. I tap my foot and wait. He swallows.

“Well? What do you think?” I ask again.

He ignores me, shovels another piece into his mouth, and continues chewing.

“You’ve had plenty of time to taste it,” I snap. “TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!”

Then the Baby Nickel sidles up to the table, attempts to sneak a taste with his grubby paw, and gets the boot.

And I am appeased, for my question has been answered. My husband likes the cake.

Mint Wedding Cake

This cake made two full 9-inch layers, but you could get three layers if you used 8-inch pans.

A note on my recipe card says: put no mint in icing. The cake is perfectly minty as is—any more would be a plunge headlong overboard.

Oil of peppermint is not to be confused with peppermint extract. Check the baking aisle of your grocery store or a health food store.

For a standard white cake: omit the oil of peppermint and dried mint leaves, and increase the vanilla extract to 2 teaspoons.

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 cups sifted cake flour (I used Softasilk)
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons crushed dried mint leaves
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 drops oil of peppermint
6 (3/4 cup) egg whites

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

Using the soiled beaters, cream together the butter and sugar.

Measure the flour, baking powder, salt, and dried mint into a small bowl. In another small bowl, measure the milk, water, vanilla, and oil of peppermint.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the wet. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Divide the batter between two greased, wax paper-lined (grease the wax paper, too), and floured 9-inch cake pans. Bake the cakes at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Allow them to cool for 10 minutes before running a knife around the edges of the cakes and carefully dumping them out onto a cooling rack.

If desired, ice the cooled cakes with buttercream (some suggestions: cream fluff frosting, buttercream frosting, and vanilla buttercream frosting).

I stored this cake, well-covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator. The cool temperatures made the cool minty-ness even more refreshing.

This same time, years previous: banana cake with creamy peanut butter frosting

My friend called me this morning:

Friend (all excited-like): Well hell-OH!!! Are you OKAY???

Me (surprised): Well, yes, I’m fine, thank you. Why do you ask?

Friend: Because you haven’t blogged for like FOUR DAYS and I have no idea how you’re doing when you don’t write. I was getting all worried because I thought something might be wrong because you weren’t writing and then I have to call you to find out and—

Me: Oh goodness, I’m FINE. Truly! And I think it’s only been three days since I posted, but I’ll forgive you the slip-up ‘cause it’s real sweet of you to care. Not much is happening here. I’m plugging away at using up my freezer stuff so I don’t have any new recipes to write about and I figured that everyone is probably bored stiff of hearing about the kids so that’s why I didn’t post. I do have a new recipe in the works—

Friend: Oh no, no. When you don’t write, I worry and then I have to call you to find out what’s going on.

Okay, so that’s not the conversation verbatim—

(Excuse me, but my youngest son is hacking up something in the downstairs bedroom with a scissors. I better go check.)

(Back again. No scissors involved [like yesterday]—he was just pounding on a sheet of cardboard with a green dry erase marker and a metal dustpan.)

—but it gets the point across.

And yes, I really am fine. I have a luscious cake post I’ve working on, but since my friend didn’t say she doesn’t want to hear more about my kids, I guess she kind of might not mind hearing more about them, so…

Story One: Windy Wood
Last I wrote, my kids had just rigged up a two-sided ramp using sawhorses, boards, and sheets of plywood.

They spent the afternoon shooting down the sides on wagons, trikes, and bikes.

When it came time to clean up, my son discovered a new game: stand a sheet of plywood up on end and then let it fall to the ground with a whoosh, right beside the other kids and resulting in a vigorous gust of wind and some wild hair. I observed this new game from my spot in the brand new strawberry patch (25 Sparkle and 25 All-Star).

It didn’t take me more than two seconds to toss my baby plants and sprint to the house for the camera.

I sat on the ground beside the girls and snapped madly away while the my son hoisted and dropped the board and my husband hollered at me from the strawberry patch to put the stupid camera down and come over and help him right this very minute.

Story Two: Cereal Worship
I don’t buy cereal any more. We’ve been living on granola (I make this recipe once a week, and sometimes twice), oatmeal, pancakes, and eggs. This is a big switch for me, a former cereal addict. But it’s gotten to the point where I no longer crave the boxed bits o’ dry crispies (too much), and I’ve accustomed myself to think ahead for our morning meals.

However, we’ve eaten so much granola lately that even the kids have started to beg for mercy. So a couple weeks ago I bought one box of frosted mini wheats and everybody but Papa got one bowl before the box was empty. It wasn’t nearly enough to alleviate our granola boredom.

So yesterday I included “cereal” in my grocery list. My husband was doing the shopping and stopped at a Dollar General on the way out of town to pick it up. Three whole boxes, he got. The kids were ecstatic.

My oldest son was the first to spy the splurge. He ran leaping and yelling (and totally ignoring our orders to come back here right this minute to help bring in the groceries) upstairs to shout the good news to his sisters. Then he sat down (once again, ignoring our orders to help put away the groceries) to read the cereal boxes.

This morning’s breakfast of honey nut cheerios (mixed with granola, ‘cause I can’t help myself) was an enormous hit. It put everyone in a downright jolly mood.

Story Three: The Life of My Porch Swing
It appears that my porch swing has a life of its own. It gets tired of always facing west and likes to shake things up every now and then.

Sometimes I go outside and find it facing towards the road.

Other times I go outside and find it making out with the white bench. (I know!)

And still other times I go outside and find that it’s up and tried to leave the porch all together and that a little monkey has taken its place.

Story Four: My Niece
Yesterday evening we took care of my niece. Normally when she comes over, she disappears with the older kids and I never see her. But this time my son was mowing the yard and the roaring machine, it turned out, kind of shell-shocked the poor dear.

At first I didn’t realize there was any problem. I was in the garden and the other kids were in the yard, on the porch, running in and out of the house. But then I went to the house for something and found the little girl quietly kneeling behind the picnic table, her hands over her ears.

I took her to the other side of the porch where it was quieter, but even when the machine was on the opposite side of the house, she kept her ears covered. She didn’t seem that upset, really, just … frozen.

Eventually she made it out to the rocks in the flower garden where she played with Sweetsie for a bit. But then my son brought the mower around to the barn and shut it off.

I watched my niece watch my son as he sat on the silent mower. After a minute she called to me loudly, never once taking her eyes off the monster machine, “Jennifer! I’m scared!”

I alerted my son to the traumatized child fleeing the rock garden behind him and he came up on the porch to entertain her.

I think my niece might adore my son. Just look at that face!

He danced around and made silly so she might be happy.

He cracked her up, he did.

And then he cuddled with her on the porch bench while my husband did the finish-up mowing.

This same time, years previous: flour tortillas, chocolate-covered peanut butter eggs, the value (or not) of the workbook, asparagus-walnut salad, asparagus with lemony crème fraîche and boiled egg