I had planned to be starting on the recipes to feed the techops crew by now, but I've been sitting here for thirty minutes trying to think of the last ingredient I needed for one of the recipes.

While desperately trying to remember the necessary ingredients, I scrabbled around in the kitchen trying to find my recipe card. No luck; it seems to have grown wings and flown. So, I was stuck with pure memory—which told me that Shirley's hamburger vegetable soup recipe required six cans of stuff, and I only had five on my list.For months I've thought of posting the occasional recipe on here—both to share them with others and, hopefully, share them back with myself when I lose the stupid recipe.

Since I'm making food for a lot of people, I'm going to be doubling each of these recipes.

Hamburger Vegetable Soup

• 1 pound hamburger
• 1 medium white onion
• 1 can cream corn
• 1 can mixed vegetables
• 1 can V-8
• 1 can stewed tomatoes (buy them already diced or smash 'em up yourself with a potato masher)
• 1 can Spanish rice (it's by the refried beans)
• 1 can Ro-tel (heat to your liking)

Dice the onion. Since Jeff doesn't like crunchy onions, sizzle the onions with about a tablespoon of oil in a nonstick skillet until soft/brown/whatever you prefer. Add the hamburger, and cook until done. Drain off the fat.

While this is cooking, add everything from the cans into a soup pot. I use kitchen shears to snip up the stewed tomatoes directly into the pot—less mess. Warm this up while the hamburger and onions are cooking.

After draining the fat from the hamburger/onion mixture, add the hamburger and onion to the soup pot. Simmer on medium until everything's warm, and season to taste. You won't need salt, but I often add a bit of black pepper and cayenne pepper.