[Tex/LaTex] Within a single paragraph, hang a wrapped line, but do not hang new lines

indentationline-breaking

I'm writing a list, and would like the line hanging to work like this

Want this line hanging

I do not want to use separate paragraphs for each item in the list, and I do not want to use the list environments; I will be using the entire text of the list as an input argument to a new command that I hope will, in addition to placing the list where I want it, be able to make it hang properly–so the kind of list that I want would look something like this (I'm using the minipage environment here so that the lines will break just as in the image):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{units}
\begin{document}

\begin{minipage}{4.5cm}
\setlength{\parindent}{0cm}
\nicefrac{1}{2} lb.\ (about 1\nicefrac{1}{2} cups) thinly sliced yellow onions\\
2 (about 1 cup) sliced green bell peppers\\
2 to 3 Tb olive oil, if necessary\\
2 cloves mashed garlic\\
Salt and pepper to taste
\end{minipage}

\end{document}

But, of course, that produces output that looks like this:

Attempt with no hangs etc

I understand that \hangindent will do the trick for paragraphs, but I do not want to use separate paragraphs for each item (and even if I did, \hangindent is local, so it'd have to go at the beginning of each item–also no good). When I try this anyway, hoping that it'll somehow know what I want (works surprisingly often with many other things LaTeX . . .), I get that this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{units}
\begin{document}

\begin{minipage}{4.5cm}
\setlength{\parindent}{0cm}
\hangindent=1em
\nicefrac{1}{2} lb.\ (about 1\nicefrac{1}{2} cups) thinly sliced yellow onions\\
2 (about 1 cup) sliced green bell peppers\\
2 to 3 Tb olive oil, if necessary\\
2 cloves mashed garlic\\
Salt and pepper to taste
\end{minipage}

\end{document}

produces this:

Using hangindent to get something I don't want

So no real surprise, but that means I'm officially out of ideas. Does someone know whether it's possible to, within a single paragraph, hang a wrapped line, but not hang new lines?

Best Answer

It makes no sense to me not to use paragraphs:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{units}
\begin{document}

\begin{minipage}{4.5cm}
\everypar{\setlength\hangindent{1em}}
\nicefrac{1}{2} lb.\ (about 1\nicefrac{1}{2} cups) thinly sliced yellow onions

2 (about 1 cup) sliced green bell peppers
2 to 3 Tb olive oil, if necessary

2 cloves mashed garlic

Salt and pepper to taste
\end{minipage}

\end{document}
Related Question