Marla's Coconut Cake

In honor of my birthday yesterday, Mr. Frosty pulled out and it's 52 degrees in the Heartland! I am positively giddy that it is not -27F.

I can hear the snow melting. Only people who live in snow can hear it melting. It is a spiritual thing that cannot be learned. You must live and endure endless winter to hear this deeply.

So in honor of 52 degrees. I am logging in with 52 great things to eat. No. On second thought. I will eat 52 things and blog them.

In the meantime, here is the last word on birthday cake: Marla's Coconut Cake-a recipe I will give out with sufficient begging.

One of the great wonders of the modern world is the little-known fact of Midwestern hardiness. I have come to believe it is my duty to let those persons, who in the dead of January, might be wearing shorts and a tank top, or driving to the grocery store with the windows down...There are people freezing in the Midwest.

Last week for instance; minus twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. This was not windchill, no siree-bob, this was actual Illinois temperature according to everyone's thermometer. Our schools closed for days. I'll be honest. I wanted to close my cafe but I have these die-hard employees who keep me straight and opened the cafe even though I called in sick and tired of minus twenty seven.

I am sure they were thinking of the huge, enormous bucket of soup the night before that would go to waste if we didn't open. I mean huge. Even I could not believe how much soup I'd made. When I am left alone in the kitchen too long without supervision, I play fast and loose with food. I kept thinking up things I wanted in my soup. I peeled, diced and plunked until the soup grew beyond our required 13 cups to 13 gallons of soup. OK maybe only 3 gallons, but let me say this; three gallons is a boat-load of soup for a tiny cafe.

These kinds of unrestrained kitchen forays do not usually work our for me but on this day, the minus-twenty-seven day, alchemy occurred. I received so many compliments on my blowsy soup that I actually went to my notepad and wrote it down.

This is a good soup that will feed 3000 if you are called to do such a thing. I cut this recipe down to serve 6-8 peeps because I had to toss out many gallons on the minus-twenty-seven day. Even to Eskimo-ish midwesterners, minus-twenty-seven gave pause and 2,990 of them stayed home by the fire drinking hot chocolate so I had some left-overs.

Fraiche Cafe Bread Soup

1 turnip diced

1 celery root diced

1 small onion diced

1 cup mushrooms

1 carrot

1 parsnip peeled, diced

5 thick slices of good bread cut into cubes

E. V. Olive Oil

1 cup grated Parmesan

8 cups chicken broth

(I hope you have home-made broth in your freezer to use)

1lb ground beef

1 egg

1cup cooked rice, brown rice is nice

1/4 cup taco sauce

(I hate to admit this is the secret ingredient)

Lots of ingredients but easy to assemble.

Mix ground beef with beaten egg.

Make tiny meat balls.

Put all ingredients into saute pan with olive oil to brown

Pour hot broth over all ingredients.

Serve over toasted bread cubes and top with Parmesan.

better..tomorrow!

Baby it's cold outside! I can't give a good report about the sideways sleet outside my window. It's November, in Northern Illinois and there is rarely any good report about sideways sleet or November.

Squishy Albright-ish garden veges hang from boney, soon-to-be slimey vines. And my food lament begins in earnest. I wax melancholy for the Farmer's Market. What oh, what to cook.

Squash. It's good comfort food. This year the Delicatas from Driftless Organics brought tears to my eyes they were so delicious. I carted home 30 lbs. Those young garadening Turks have never steered me wrong.

I am partial to squash soup with splash of apple cider. Just a bit of sweet. Not a lot is needed when you have squash this good. Little doctoring is required, mostly assemblage.

Slash the Delacatas or Carnivals, or baby dumplings..(it's all good!)....Roast the halves until squashy (couldn't resist), scoop it out cut up a few apples, a quart or so of good broth (I hope you made it from your good organic and free-ranged hens) grind up some French sea salt, a grunt of pepper. Not too much else. This soup is not a platform for excesses! Puree it all --serve it up with a dollop of creme fraiche and something green--a sage leaf plucked just before last nights frost will warm you almost as much as the soup.

Eat this in your warm, fuzzy slipper and an old robe. Pretend that it is not sleeting sideways, grey snow outside.

Fraiche Cafe!!