Melting Pot Cabbage Soup

My friend, Nikky, showed me how to make an incredible cabbage soup. I love it because you can switch it up easily to make a different soup each time. Here is the basis to it and then the recipe that I made.


Melting Pot Cabbage Soup

Start by chopping about a pound or two of meat into "stew" sized chunks. Ground meat works well too. Cook in a skillet with a bit of broth, water or cooking wine until cooked through.

Add chopped veggies to the cooking meat. I like to add onions and garlic. We've also added squash, eggplant, carrots, broccoli, celery or any other vegetables you like. Saute until almost tender.

Add two cans of cream of something soup or about 4 cups of spaghetti sauce. We've also added tomato sauce instead.

In a stock pot chop a head of cabbage into bite size pieces. I like to mix red and green cabbage but either one is okay. Add broth or water to it, just enough to cover the cabbage, and cook until tender.

Add the meat mixture to the cabbage mix and stir thoroughly. Add any seasoning you want. I like to add a bit of basil, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and Italian seasoning. About two tablespoons for each seasoning is good for me.

When it is done simmering, you can add cheese, sour cream or cream cheese to add to it, or just eat it as it is.

One pot lasts us a couple days. I portion out the Melting Pot Cabbage Soup into ziplock containers so I can take some for lunch.


Here is the recipe I used to make it:
 In the skillet

Chicken, 1-1/2 pounds cubed.
1 large red onion, diced (I would have done more but I couldn't open my eyes)
1 bag peas and carrots
1 jar Prego brand spaghetti sauce mushroom flavor
About 1/2 cup of Marsala cooking wine. 

In the stock pot
1/2 head of green cabbage
1/2 head of red cabbage
Mushroom broth, 1 box, Imagine brand
Enough water to fill the pot enough to cover the cabbage.
Then I added more cabbage until it heaped over the top of the pot.

I cooked it down some and then added
1/4 cup basil (The cap fell off while I was shaking it)

1 TBSP each: pepper, garlic powder and onion powder
2 TBSP Italian seasoning... I think... I might have added tarragon. I can't remember.

I added the meat skillet mix to the stock pot slowly, stirring it in with every couple of ladle scoops. Once mixed, I let it sit and simmer for an hour or so (I was busy). Then portioned it out in my ziplock containers for work (3 containers, 1 for each day) and we ate the rest over 2 days.

If you try a variety of this dish that you like, let me know! I am always looking for new ideas.

If you try this recipe, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

For more recipes, click here.

Rumors... Living Vicariously Through Lies.

My workplace is full of rumors.  It is like living in a Junior High School only more vicious.  I do not need to watch soap operas; the rumors at work are hilarious and entertaining enough.  The batch this week has been very interesting to listen to and made me think about when I lived in Tennessee and had a bunch of rumors spread about me.  I, apparently, have a very interesting life that I didn’t know about.

According to the rumors there, I am a witch and I cast spells on my residents to make them sleep.  If I did, my residents would be asleep all night not up wandering the halls.  I also held séances out back behind the nursing home under a full moon and I was searching for virgins.  Trust me, if I was searching for virgins, I wouldn’t be looking for them at that place.  Some of the rumors were true.  Moreover, I sure the hell wouldn’t be holding séances under a full moon!  Everyone would be able to see you… it would be under a new moon where it would be dark and harder to see.  Common sense, people.  Seriously.

The ones here are not as outlandish but they are still hilarious.  Did you know I am rich?  Me either.  However, according to the source, I am rich because of my writing and I do not really need to work.  I wish that were true.  However, my writing is just a hobby and does not pay much and I am anything but rich.  Right now, I have $32 in the bank.  If that makes me rich, cool.  It is not going very far though.

Then there is the one where I have a lesbian lover.  Here name is Nikky.  We are secret lesbian lovers.  Jealous yet?  Don’t be.  Nikky is my best friend and like a sister to me.  We spend a lot of time together but we are NOT lesbian lovers.  I guess it does not help that we go everywhere together and I happen to have open-mouth-insert-foot moments a lot, like the time she did laundry at my house and left some of her clothes behind.  We were outside on break one day and I said all enthusiastically, “Hey!  You left your thongs at my house!”  Oh, I could have died of embarrassment when I realized how that sounded.

This last week we went on a road trip to Washington and stayed in a hotel two nights.  Our boss forgot to take her off the schedule.  I got a call at 5:30 in the morning from one of our friends saying, “Wake up Nikky!  She has to call in.  Cindy put her on the schedule.”  I hopped out of bed and handed her the phone.  When we got back into town, our friend was telling Nikky that they were all sitting outside trying to figure out how to get a hold of Nikky since she wasn’t answering her phone (she turned it down).  Ang said “Call Dotchi, have her roll over and smack Nikky in the face.”  Thanks guys.  Thanks.  Love you too.

The rumors that came out this week did not involve Nikky and me this time.  Apparently, everyone at work is sleeping with everyone else in various places throughout the town.  One guy and his wife went to marriage counseling over it.  Another was found making out with someone else at the bar.  This is the same person that slept with a gang that came through town and spray painted their logo all over town.  It is all confusing to follow but entertaining to hear, especially when you know the truth about some of them. 

Where do people come up with this shit?  Seriously?  Do people sit around at night drinking and concocting stories about fellow coworkers?  Where do you do this?  I want a stiff drink.  I am a writer; I can help create some interesting rumors.  However, I will warn you, someone is going to abducted and anally probed. 

How to Create a Household Budget

Recently several people have asked me how I create my household budget each paycheck. So, here is my household budget plan for a month. I learned this from my friend Leslie. She taught me how to make a household budget and stick to it when I did not know what the heck I was doing.


Getting Started
Gather all your bills into one spot. You can use a shoebox, folders, files or any other organization system that you find useful. I use the Filewise file folder system to help me keep my paperwork organized.
You will also need paper and pencil/pen or some spreadsheet software to help you create your budget. I use Excel but paper and pencil will work just fine.
Set aside one hour a paycheck to go through all your bills and plan your budget.


What bills do you have?
Next, write down all your bills and how much you owe for that month. Here is a list of my bills that I will use:

• Rent- $400
• Electric- $136
• House Phone- $75
• Cell phone- $50
• Sears Credit Card- $30
• Credit Card #2- $25
• Credit Card #3- $30
• Medical- $122

What do you need to survive?
Let's say you did not get a big paycheck, your car broke down, you have a garnishment you weren't expecting or something else happened that you didn't plan… What do you need to survive? You need food but you do not need McDonald's, Stouffer's Lasagna or Pepsi. Plan to make your food budget for cooking your own meals, making your coffee and taking your own snack.

• Gas money- $30 (I could walk to work if I needed. I added this to give you an idea)
• Food- $200
• Kid's Lunches- (My kids are homeschooled so I do not have this expense either)

How much are you earning?
On your pad of paper, write down how much you are making. I guess low for my average paycheck. We will guess my paycheck at $800. It may be higher or lower, but this is the average.
Now, write down and subtract the things you need to survive. My pad will look like this
Amount I have/ Item I am adding or subtracting /Amt left

• $800    Paycheck    800
• 200    Food        600
• 30    Gas        570

Prioritize
Now that I now I am not going to starve to death before my next payday and I can make it to work to earn more money, I go through my bills and figure out what is the most important bills to pay. Things like rent and electricity are paid first. The cell phone is the last thing on the list. I don't NEED a cell phone. I do NEED a house to live in though… and electricity is necessary as well. Here are my bills in order of necessity:

• Rent- $400
• Electric- 150
• House Phone (with internet)- $70
• Sears Credit Card- $30
• Credit Card #2- $30
• Credit Card #3- $30
• Cell phone- $50
• Medical- $122

Cut it in half
You may not be able to do this but this is what I prefer to do.
Since I have 2 paychecks a month, I pay half a bill on one paycheck and the other half on the next. One paycheck bills will look like this:
570    What I have to pay bills

• 200    Rent        370
• 75    Electric    295
• 35    H. Phone    260
• 15    Sears        245
• 15    CC #2        215
• 15    CC #3        200
• 25    Cell Phone    175 (put in an envelope and set aside until next paycheck)
• 50    Medical    125 (leaving 72 as my balance)

Savings!
As much as I would love to be able to set aside what experts say I should, I cannot always do that. Once I know that my bills are paid, I will make it to work and I will not go hungry, then I can plan to set aside some money for savings. The minimum I like to set aside is $50 a paycheck.
At $800 a paycheck, I would really like to set aside $80, but I do not think I want to do that so I plan on $75. That is $150 a month in savings. Now if you need the money (and I mean NEED it) you can take it out and use it. If not, let it sit there and collect interest for a while.

• 125     Left after bills
• 75    Goes into savings!    105

Now I have $105 left over. I can spend this or go a step further and snowball my bills. Some checks I work on paying the debt, other checks I go shopping for new towels, clothes, yarn, shoes, something for the car, trash bags I ran out of, etc.


SNOWBALL your bills!
So now, we have $105 to spend wisely. Assuming we do not need anything else, like printer ink, new shoes, hair cuts, an oil change, etc then we start snowballing the bills so we can get rid of them.
Once you have paid all the debts the MINIMUM amount due for the month…
The idea behind this is that you find the smallest amount owed on your debts and pay all the extra money on that bill first to get it paid off. Once it is paid off, start adding the amount you owed on it and the extra money onto the next smallest debt until it is paid off and so on.
In my example, I have $72 left on my medical bill. I pay it out of my $105 left over and BAM! I have a bill paid off and I have $33 to add to my next lowest bill or use as play money. I usually try to keep extra out for things like soap (which I buy in bulk and it lasts for MONTHS), casino night with friends, eating out, new clothes or something else fun so I don't feel as poor as I am.


Snowball argument
Some people argue that you should pay off the higher interest rate loans and credit cards before you pay off your smaller debts. I argue that I would rather have 2 higher interest debts that I can pay a lot on rather than having 27 debts (BTDT!) nickel and diming my paycheck away every single month. I have tried both ways and I prefer paying off the debt with a smaller balance first. If I pay off that $100 medical debt this month, I can add that $100 to my $3,000 medical bill with 10% interest next month when I have one less bill to worry about… instead of paying $10 on that smaller bill for the next 10 months.


I did try snowballing the higher interest debts first for about a year before I finally switched to snowballing the debts starting with the smallest balance. In one year, we got rid of TWO bills… each under $100 to start… when snowballing the higher interest. Since we switched, we have managed to knock our debt down from over $50,000 to about $5,000 in around six years. The first year of snowballing starting with the smaller debts first, we went from 27 debts down to 18 debts. I think that says more to me than what any expert can say…


Fewer bills helps me out more on those months my paychecks are short.

It's getting closer!

Today my friend and I are going to Spokane to pick up my husband while the kiddos stay and play with friends and have an impromptu hang out session. He'll be here for 10 days for the holiday season.

It got me to thinking about the holidays and I have noticed that a lot of people are wishing "Merry Christmas" before it even hits now. I was just curious as to why. That would be like wishing everyone a Happy Birthday weeks before their actual birthday. Now, someone told me it's because it's "the season" for wishing "Merry Christmas". I don't think so! Christmas happens on an actual day. It's not a month long celebration like Ramadan or something like that. It's a DAY. 


So, I wish Happy Holidays instead... but I get called the Grinch for not saying "Merry Christmas". You know what, people, not everyone celebrates Christmas. On Christmas day I wish people a "Merry Christmas". 

Just because people have their pagan tree up (and what does that have to do with Jesus' birth?) the day after Thanksgiving doesn't make the month of December Christmas. It's December 25th. Yet, I get called all sorts of names because I say Happy Holidays. They say I am taking the "Christ" out of Christmas. So let me clear a few things up:

1. I'm not a Christian. The only reason we celebrate Christmas is because my husband is a Christian.
2. I am not taking "Christ" out of Christmas. The media did that for you. So stop blaming me.
3. What the hell does a tree, stockings, elves and a fat man have to do with your prophet being born?
4. Christmas is on December 25th, not the entire month of December. So when I say Happy Holidays, I am including all my friends that have holidays this month, Christian included. How is that being Grinchy?
5. Saying Merry Christmas excludes all my Jewish, Muslim, Pagan and Wiccan friends. Wouldn't it be nice to wish everyone joy instead of one small group?

I am so sick and tired of being called names just because I say Happy Holidays. I am about to tell everyone to go stuff it up their chimney, pour a stiff glass of eggnog and lock myself away until New Year.

Bah Humbug!
Dotchi Latham

HAPPY NEWS!

I am thrilled and excited to tell everyone that I have a part time position at work now. I was thrilled to hear this! I will work Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday now, every week from 6am until 2 pm. So I won’t have my weekends off, but I will have 3 days a week off all in a row so I am still happy about it. Now I can have time to blog and work on my writing too! And have time to spend helping the boys more with their school work too. I think this will work fine for now. It’ll be weird working during my sleep hours but I think I’ll adjust just fine.

Well, I am off to get a nap and get ready for work now. Just had to share!

Dotchi