The Great Depression Now is Spreading

Pandemic Potato and Ham Soup

Were you smart to buy a huge bag of potatoes for your pandemic party?  Turns out they last but not as long as you would think.  Lucky Brooklynites like me with corner vegetable markets buy produce as needed.  You get 3 potatoes and use them that day, so it's been a learning curve on when and how to use your vegetable stash before it goes bad.  This Ham Bone Soup with chunky potatoes took 1/2 of my small bag.

A long slow simmer with my recent baked ham-bone, an onion, garlic, celery, carrots, herbs, bay leaf and lots of pepper corns until all the meat is released and the fatty bits have flavored the broth.  No extra salt needed. You could blend up some of the potato with cream  and add corn to make a delicious chowder but I felt the clear broth was better to combat the bugs that I already felt trying to infiltrate our bodies.

There is a now an ongoing list on our chalkboard of the order in which fresh items need to be eaten, as well as leftovers.  This way nothing is wasted and you're assured you've been as smart and frugal as humanly possible.  It's not to that critical point yet, we still have all our markets open but when that surge hits, you should have some training behind you.  But separate to that, we should never waste food period.  I was raised by depression era parents and out of necessity they became experts at using up all the bits.  I've kept that going in my kitchen.