Is This The Official Meal of Quarantine?

Based on the questions and comments (and photos) I’ve been getting over the past few weeks, there is a lot of soup and sandwich making happening right now. Makes total sense: Those things are easy to make from simple, cheap, readily available ingredients, and the combinations are pretty close to infinite. More than asking for specific recipes, people are wondering how to get better at improvising, putting together meals on the fly, and making use of what they have in their pantries, fridges, and freezers.

I think the below “articles” (I don’t really know what to call them; they’re some combination of methods, lists, and recipes) can help with that. The first one breaks down the process of soup-making into a kind of super-flexible formula, so that you can make delicious soups out of whatever you have on hand. The second one is a quick ditty on how to amplify the flavor of water if you’re making soup without stock. (I’ve always said that making water-based soup is better than not making soup at all, and this is particularly true now that we’re trying to stretch our ingredients as far as they will go.) You might also want to check out these 9 mini-recipes for simple stocks to make soups on the fly.

Lastly, on the sandwich front, I think the best thing I can offer is my recipe for a simple, incredibly good and reliable sandwich loaf. Lots of you have been getting into (or further into) bread baking these days; whether you’re a beginner or not, this is a loaf that should be in your repertoire, and it will take your sandwich game to a whole other level. I know flour can be hard to come by, but if you can get your hands on some, the time to make this is now.

Of course, no obligation to make sandwiches out of it; toasted and drizzled with a little olive oil, it’s kind of the perfect thing to dip into a bowl of soup.

—Mark

Talk To Me, Goose!

Questions, comments, brilliant suggestions? Just want to share the recipe for your grandma’s potato salad, or your mom’s meatloaf, or your uncle Drew’s three-day 100-percent rye loaf (yes, please)? Don’t hesitate to reach out anytime.