Inspired! Things you can do with cabbage, bread, donuts, cornmeal and apples

The last two days I have been given some pretty awesome food

A nice lady in my church gave me several pounds of gleaned apples and another sweet lady gave me a red cabbage, delicious homemade donuts and bread, and 2 bags of cornmeal. 

Can I just say, I love free anything, especially food! It's fun to take ingredients and come up with something to make out of them. 

So here is what I did!

Homemade applesauce paired with Ruth's delicious homemade donuts

 Cabbage and apples were the perfect addition to these sour cream ranch chicken roll ups

My  cinnamon and pumpkin cornbread. This is sooo yummy and will be our breakfast tomorrow

Last but not least, this is a favorite of one of my daughters. Cream cheese and red bell pepper on Ruth's homemade bread 

The pizza dough I use for my stromboli

I found this recipe years ago and I use it for pizza, bread sticks and now Stromboli. I double, triple and quadruple this recipe as I have such a large family and often feed friends and missionaries. A single batch will make 1 Stromboli


pizza dough

3 cups all purpose flour
2 tbs active dry yeast
2 tbs vegetable or olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbs granulated sugar
1 cup warm water


Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. mix well then add wet ingredients.
sprinkle a generous amount of flour on counter and roll out dough to desired size.
bake at 375 for 25 minutes

Down sizing, a big decision

When we were looking for a new home for our family, I had two requirements. I wanted a little more land and I wanted a smaller house.  Smaller seemed a little crazy considering our family size but frankly, I was tired of cleaning such a big space. Yes we had more closets, bigger closets even. We had 3 full bathrooms, and  a garage that was 3 times the size as the new garage but all that meant to me, was more cleaning, and more stuff. More places to put that stuff. Down sizing meant decluttering, prioritizing, deciding what was actually important. 

I got rid of dish sets, clothes, pots and pans, old blankets, books that my kids had not read in years. Even after we moved I was finding things that we didn't want, need or use. We had to get rid of furniture that didn't fit in the new house. I admit that sometimes I would feel a little sad to get rid of certain things, but I would remind myself it was just stuff. It wasn't even sentimental! Just plain old stuff that we had collected over the years and we no longer needed it. 

The smaller house makes me more aware. I can't just bring whatever I want home because there is no room. I have to consider all purchases, even clothing. My closet is 5 times smaller than my Lake Tapps closet, we even had to take off the doors to make everything fit!

Do I regret our choice to downsize? I love our new house. I do miss having a walk-in closet and master bathroom but other than that, no. I don't regret it. The cleaning gets done so much faster. The kids have enough space and less stuff to clutter up that space. 

One day all my kids will move out and even this house will seem too big. It will no longer matter that I don't have a walk-in closet or a master bathroom because there will be no children to share with. So I choose to enjoy these years with them in our small house, even the times I am banging on the bathroom door and yelling at them to hurry up

our Lake Tapps house

Our new house. Yes there is a downstairs!