Day 9: Cooking Hobo Soup

Day 9 Vitals:

Weight:  271 lbs.
Mood:  Everything is Okay!
Water Consumed:  2 Nalgenes
Breakfast:  Oatmeal with Cinnamon
Lunch:  Potato, apple, hot dog, 1/2 ear of corn
Dinner: Hobo Soup
Hangry Thought of the Day: Why didn't Chewie hug Leia?!

My recipe today was inspired by a rustic potato leak soup posted on Whole Foods Site .  It is heavily modified from the original recipe, but it still worked.  I am calling the creation a Hobo Soup, a loose term I use for any soup you can through together from stuff in your pantry.  Here are the ingredients I used:

• 3lbs. of Potatoes cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 leaks
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1lb. of ground chicken cooked with 2 eggs (from my previous disaster)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Italian Seasoning
• 1 large container of Chicken broth

I tossed it all into the crock-pot in the morning.  After work, viola!  Hobo Soup.  It wasn't too bad.  Needed WAY more seasoning, nothing a little more salt and some sriracha sauce couldn't fix.  A great game designer named Mark Rosewater once wrote an article about creativity.  He said that (and I am paraphrasing here) setting limitations for yourself breeds creativity.  When we have all the resources we want at our fingertips it often leads to stagnation.  The limits we set for ourselves is where creativity breeds.  I only had so much ingredients to work with, and no coherent recipe to work with, but I still managed to create a pretty fine soup, and one that will last ALL week!  I guess the lesson I am trying to impart is that if you go open you cupboard right now I bet you will find something on yourself that has been sitting there for some time.  This is a luxury most people on SNAP do not have.  Plus it is a waste of resources, you have perfectly good food that is just spoiling away!  Take it out, look at it, and be creative.  Make it into something.  If you are having troubles finding a good recipe head over to Allrecipes.com and type in the item you have left over.  It will dig through its huge database of recipes and help you find some inspiration.  You'll love how you feel for being so creative, less wasteful, and helps with your food budget,

That's all for now!  Thanks for reading.  Please remember that we are trying to raise $2,500 for the Finnegans Community Fund.  If you haven't yet donated please click the big picture of the Finnegans logo to the right of this column.  98% of your donation goes back to the community in the form of nutritious food, right here in the Twin Cities!