Hit & Run Hodgepodge Soup

This winter is killer. I'm a teacher and we've already had five snow days. These will be made up at the end of the year ... and then if we have more, from one of our breaks, probably April.  I'm home today, and not because of the weather.  Around 2 am Sunday morning, some probably drunken' idiot smashed into the rear driver side of my parked car and drove off.  No note, no knock on the door in the morning, nothing.  Insurance company, car rental places, and auto body repair shops are not open, so, alas, I am home today to take care of it all.  Irritating to say the least, especially since I really don't have the extra money for the costs this will incur. Such is life, I suppose. So, in light of being home and annoyed and feeling very financially challenged, I decided to cook.  When I was in college, there was a nearby diner that made the most amazing hearty yummy soup they called  hodgepodge soup. I decided to try my own version, using up some fresh veggies that are sure to go bad soon if they aren't cooked as well as a few healthy ingredients to punch up the nutritional content.  It was originally going to be vegetarian, but keeping my carnivore boyfriend in mind, I decided to add some meat.  We have several "someday" dreams ... one of which is a bed and breakfast with meals made by the both of us centering around my homegrown veggies and herbs as well as locally grown/raised produce and meats.  I can envision making versions of this soup with whatever we have in surplus, adjusting the spices to suit the veggies.  This one has a decidedly Mexican/Latin flair to it.... if anyone gives it a shot, or adjusts reflecting their own refrigerator contents, let me know how it comes out! I'll be trying  a bowl when I'm done writing.  My measurements are approximate, as always ...

• I started with some good olive oil and cooking down 1/4 shallot, 3 garlic cloves, 1/4 roughly chopped white onion, 2 tomatillos, 1/2 a tomato, 1/4 finely chopped jalapeno, and a nice big splash of bud light. 
• Added two thawed out hamburger patties, broken up into chunks with my hands
• About half a container of low sodium chicken broth, Stop & Shop's natural brand
• Can of Goya red beans and 2/3 cup green lentils
• Two big handfuls of baby carrots, chopped into thirds, some more white onion, 1/3 of a red pepper, roughly chopped
• Spices: fresh cilantro, Adobo, red pepper flakes, freshly grated ginger, cinnamon, cumin, fresh thyme, sea salt, black pepper, 3 bay leaves
• whole wheat penne - like 1/4 of a box
• rind from Parmesan cheese (saw this trick on Rachel Ray, I think...)
• added water to fill the pot, and adjusted seasonings to taste

We'll see how it comes out. My apartment smells amazing ...

Let's see how this goes

I'm incredible irritated today for like a million and zero good reasons.  I can't put my finger on the restlessness and angst .. so I'm writing. Maybe I'll get some clarity, maybe I just need to vent. Whatever ... I'm into my second glass of red wine, J is asleep on the couch, the playoffs are on the tv ... blah, blah ... aren't I interesting? I can hear my neighbor downstairs coming home. Married couple, two young kids.  Annoying neighbors in the oddest little ways. They have 2 big ass SUV's and are the only people on the street who didn't feel the need to shovel their cars appropriately out. Well, since they don't own a shovel, and borrow ours late at night when everyone is asleep, attempting to be quasi- ninja about it all with the scrape-scrape-scrape of the shovel against the pavement, ice, my car, what-have-you ... I can understand that they aren't thorough about it.  Shoveling sucks, I get that.  And hey, who am I to talk when my boyfriend is an ANGEL and does it all before I even drag my lazy ass from the bed ... but. still. They shoveled JUST enough BEHIND the 2 trucks so that they can both back out in the same space ... and left a four foot wall of snow where the plows pushed it like, in the middle of the street around their cars.  Looks like absolute shit.  Wish I could draw a picture of it b/c it is so damn hard to describe.  But OUR lovely spot, behind their debacle, our little car, is perfectly, neatly, completely shoveled out, several feet in front, several feet behind, a path through the snow from sidewalk to my passenger side door ... no WALL O' SNOW in the road, thank you very much.  Until today, when maybe they had some issues backing out and had to rev the engines a bit .. and kicked a whole bunch of THEIR mess into our clean spot. My path to the sidewalk, obliterated. WTF? Let's add to this 3 annoying details: 1) When they go out, they move one truck into the MIDDLE of their crappy spot, to prevent neighbors or our company from seizing the prime locale, no doubt. 2) I THINK they have a 3rd car, parked about 2 car lengths behind ours, and about a half-car length from the end of the street, which is utterly buried in snow, totally preventing anyone from plowing the area clean or parking their cars on this side of the street. 3) Lazy-ass could not be bothered to bring his trash out to the garbage cans, because, as expected, they are in the SNOW, so, of course the logical conclusion is to throw barely-closed, stinky bags of garbage right out onto the front porch.  Which, of course, animals have gotten into, so we have orange peels and assorted yuckiness all over the porch, our steps.  Really. I called my landlord, who happens to be my dad. :) J had already pulled a garbage can out of the snow and dumped out the snow, placed it near the porch, (which took all of 2 minutes) so hopefully Grosso-man will clean up his mess and deposit it in the can, hopefully.  UGH. I really want to call public works about the car covered in snow.  Is that the right thing to do? Or should we politely ask him if its his car and if he can move it so we can get someone to plow? No idea what the polite/proper thing is to do when dealing with people who clearly have no problem behaving impolitely and improperly ...