I have a small pan of red kidney beans simmering this morning, then I'm going to assemble as small batch of paste e fagiole. I have a 6 ounce NY strip steak that was grilled a couple of days ago in the fridge (a friend was going to come for dinner, then couldn't make it. Instant leftovers). I'm going to run that through my grinder and use it to make a small batch of soup. The smoky beef flavor should be nice. If it needs a little more meat I'll use something else, maybe some sausage, to bulk up the meat percentage. I have the rest of the ingredients around here and I'm aiming at about half of the amount of the "normal" generous recipe.

Shopping is a fraught process, with the COVID-19 numbers rapidly increasing here in Texas and throughout the US. The Walmart stores in town open at 6am on Tuesday mornings for seniors, and my next door neighbor told me about this, that the store was pretty close to empty. That was my experience today, and I also visited another grocery store (Winco) that has early hours and between the two managed to get myself back in business with fresh fruit and vegetables. (I shop at Walmart maybe twice a year; today's trip was to load up in the pharmacy area to replace my extremely outdated cold remedies, etc.)

I went a little crazy on the Winco pasta aisle. I got out of the habit for a couple of years when I was avoiding foods made with wheat. Treatment for Polymyalgia rheumatica doesn't say to avoid wheat, but since it is an inflammatory food, I figured it was worthwhile to cut back for the 18 months I was tapering steroids. Now the various shapes and sizes are in their bags in the freezer for a few days (standard practice in a hot climate). I'm using up the rice pasta I have here (some will go in the soup today).