Mariner's Home-style Vegetable-Beef Soup

I've been making this soup, on rare occasion, ever since I retired, at which time I temporarily assumed some of the cooking chores for which my Honey would otherwise have been responsible. I don't know why I haven't already posted it, because we really like it, and so has everyone who has had any of it. Anyway, I had a need to make some today, so I decided it was time to share my recipé. If you decide to re-create this, you'll need the following:

Mom's Chocolate-Iced Layer Cake

Following the death of my father, in 1989, my Mom asked that the family begin celebrating Thanksgiving Day together regularly, in remembrance of him. She held that Thanksgiving was Dad's favorite holiday, and that it would be appropriate for the family to meet together at that time. We agreed to her request, and for nearly 28 years now - with only one exception - we have held our family reunion on Thanksgiving Day, in memory of our Dad.

Lonnie's Brunswick (Whatchagot) Stew

For quite some time, my brother Lonnie has been making his version of Brunswick Stew. This is a favorite dish of mine, and he traditionally brings it to our Family Reunion, after which I try to make off with all of the leftovers. It's apparently also quite popular with a whole bunch of other people, because somebody is always asking him for the recipé. After the last flurry of such requests in social media, I contacted him and asked if he would like to have me post the recipé here, allowing him to respond to such requests with a url instead of individual messages. He thought that was a good idea, so here goes:

Mom's Old Fashioned Dark Fruitcake

Most of the time, when someone mentions fruitcake, it's a joke.  I have to tell you though, my Mom has made a tradition of baking fruitcake for many years, and I think it's wonderful!  I'm not particularly fond of any of the commercial fruitcake products - they're all too dry or doughy - but Mom's cake is very different.

Canning Mariner's Black Bean Soup - Revised

This post is "Canning Black Bean Soup v2.0, and revises and supplants the original post on the subject. I have changed the process to accommodate additional experience with the recipé.  The previous version was my first attempt to achieve consistency in the distribution of soup components between jars of the same batch of soup. It worked, in terms of improving consistency, but it resulted in a tremendous increase in the complexity and amount of effort.  In this version, I have abandoned that approach, opting instead for a little more care in charging the jars with product. As before, the recipé for this soup isn't radically different from the original crock pot version; it has only been slightly modified to accommodate processing with a pressure canner.