Chocolate Souffle

I absolutely love Chocolate Souffle. They serve it at the resort we go to in Mexico and a local restaurant use to serve it until they got a new chef. It is such a comforting warm dessert that just melts in your mouth. I have not had the delightful dessert since Januarary so I decided I would make it.

I used a recipe from Food Network for the souffle and the cream sauce I kinda just put together myself.

Ingredients
7 ounces finely chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus for preparing the molds
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons warm water
1/2 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
8 large egg whites, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Confectioners' sugar for garnish

Directions

Brush 6 (6-ounce) ramekins with soft butter, then coat with sugar. Put the prepared ramekins in the freezer. (This can be done a day ahead.)

Set an oven rack in lower third of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F.

Put the chocolate and butter in a medium heatproof bowl. Bring a saucepan filled with an inch or so of water to a very slow simmer; set the bowl over, but not touching, the water. Stir the chocolate occasionally until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Set aside.

Combine the egg yolks and warm water in the bowl of a standing mixer or large bowl and beat until frothy. Gradually add 2 tablespoons sugar, and continue beating until ribbons form, about 5 minutes. Very lightly fold the yolks into the chocolate mixture. (Rinse the bowl well, if using for beating the egg whites.)

Remove prepared ramekins from freezer. Put the egg whites in the bowl of a standing mixer, or large non-reactive bowl, add the lemon juice. Beat on medium until frothy; then gradually add the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and increase speed to high. Beat until the whites hold a stiff but not dry peak.

Working quickly, fold about a third of the egg whites into the chocolate to lighten; then fold in remaining whites until blended. Gently ladle or spoon the souffle mixture into the ramekins, and place on a baking sheet. (Level off the surface with a straight edge, scraping any excess mixture back into the bowl.)

Immediately bake until the souffle rises about 1 1/2 inches from the ramekins, and the tops are touched with brown, about 18 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven, dust with confectioners' sugar and serve immediately. It is important to take it out at the right time.

The Cream sauce - You put this sauce in the middle and all around.

Ingredients
2 cups whipping cream
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Stir first 3 ingredients together in a saucepan. Add butter, and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until butter is melted and mixture begins to boil. Cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes or until mixture is slightly thickened. Remove from heat, and stir in vanilla. Serve warm.

This dessert is a little time consuming but well worth the effort and I highly suggest trying it out.
This is a picture of souffle that I had in Mexico

This is souffle that I made last night

Linking up with

Full Plate Thursday

.

Confessions and Honesty about having a baby boy

Since I was a little girl, I have loved babies. Up, until my teenage years I use to say that I was going to have a 100 kids. Now, I am a little more realistic and I may not want to have a 100 kids but I do want to have an orphange, private school, or even be a foster mom (God is still working on the details of what exactly it is). I do want several kids, I think I would have 5 or 6 if I have the financial backing and time for them all. So we will see??

Anyways, I never really cared what this baby was or is, just that it is healthy! We went to the dr for the ultrasound and the doctor said, "Do you see that little displacement, (baby was face down so we could not really see a good picture), I think that is a penis." He then said it looks like a boy.

I was excited to have a baby and that this would be the first little boy. Then a couple days later, fear set in. I began to wonder, God, why would you trust me with a boy? I have done countless years of girls and women ministries. I have taught tons of purity conference and classes, I am the girliest of girls. In fact my friend, (Lauren Pachl) jokes that there is no one more lady like than me and I am so prim and proper. I know girls, I know how to teach a girl to stay pure, how to help build her confidence, how to teach a girl to grow in her relationship with the Lord, how to flourish the calling of God in her life, I know GIRLS! The more I thought about it the more I feared, God what were you thinking, this must be a mistake. I hate failing, (like most people), and I want to do everything with 100% of everything I have and so fear took over my mind as I was not sure I could do the task with a 100% excellence. I was never around boys, crude talk is something I despise and have hardly been around, bodily noises is something I am never around, and I am the most unathletic person you can meet. The more I thought about it, the more anxiety I got.

God always knows what he is doing! As I prayed about my inability and lack of knowledge of boys, God laid on my heart, "I always know what I am doing." I may not know alot about boys but God started to reveal to me that I know alot about being a lady and boys (eventually men) need to learn how to treat a girl like a lady. God began to show me the things I do know and how that applies to a boy. That one of the most important thing is to raise a boy in the Lord and show him how to treat a lady. That this world lacks boys/men with pure hearts that respect women and their bodies. That I need to raise a boy that takes responsibility and can take care of himself, I can remember going to college and all of these boys didn't know how to do their laundry, or simple tasks because there mom did it. Nothing against those moms but I believe a boy/man can take responsibility for their own laundry and other task. That even though I have a lack of knowledge of boys, I have a knowledge of what a Godly man is for a women one day and to start there. So several things came to my heart of where to start and I believe I will go from there.

I am not going to lie, I filled my kindle with several books on raising boys to get a little bit more knowledge of the journey I am about to embark but my number one source will be the knowledge that God provides me as I ask Him for wisdom. I have to remember God always knows what he is doing!! I may not be qualified at all of for the job but God will enable me to be the very best mom I can be for this little boy and I will have to rely on him.
This is my cute little girl and I am not sure why she is making that face but probably because she wants to go "bye, bye"

Here I am at 22 or 23 weeks.

Update to a picture

My mom got me a picture on sale at Old Time Pottery. We have all tree pictures in our living room and it went with the pictures great but it had this terrible cheap frame. I had it up for at least 6 months and get tire of looking at the frame. One day at Menards, I bought some rustoleum spray paint and decided I was going to paint it.

This is a before picture:

1. I took all of the staples out that was holding the frame in place. Which was alot harder than it sounds and the staples flew across the room.

2. I painted the frame and let it dry.

3. Instead of stapling it back my husband used some kind of sealant and glued it back together.

4. There you go it looks so much better now in my living. The great thing is that the picture cost $10 and the paint cost $4 so total cost $14 for a picture that matches our house perfectly.

I have been really slow about adding details and decor to my house because I hate spending a ton of money on things I do not need and love when I can find great deals. So It may take me 10 years to get my whole house decorated but slowly I will will get there.

Here is an after picture

Niah is going to have.......

Niah is going to have......

Matthew says we are about 90% sure that is what it is :-)(I will explain in another post)

Lots of projects and going on the King house more blogging hopefully coming soon!!!

Pregnancy and its symptoms

Well I am well into my 19th week of pregnancy and they were right you definately show sooner in your second pregnancy. It was somewhere around 17 1/2 to 18 weeks that it was like boom there is a baby bump. In the first pregnancy it was around week 21-22 time period.

I begin to think about how this baby will not get the same attention that Niah got when it is born or even now. Then I realize all of the things this baby gets that Niah did not get. Every Night I pray with Niah while rocking her and then we sing a worship. We started praying for baby #2 in our prayers, which I think is neat that Niah is getting to be apart of this pregnancy. As well as I never sang to Niah in utero and this baby hears me sing every night and hopefully it will be a comforting sound to baby once it is born. I started feeling baby move around 17 weeks, I believe it is just a week earlier than Niah.

Here is a picture of me now on the left 19 weeks and the pic on the right is me at 18 weeks pregnant with Niah with my sister (check her blog out about being a mom here) who was also pregnant.

Well my husband and I honestly never fight, maybe in the first year we had few or several arguments but since then less than a handful. Since being pregnant I can think of 2 disagreements which ended in me crying. My poor husband said after the 2nd disagreement, "I have to believe that you started crying because you are pregnant, the only other time you cried was when target would not return something for you and you were pregnant." I had to agree, I would not say I am an extremely emotional pregnant lady like some of the stories I have heard but at the littlest disagreement (I hate disagreements) I end in great big tears. Darn pregnancy hormones. I already knew that I cried alot easier in movies which Matthew already picked up but real life it seems the tears come. I guess it is healthy to have a good cry!

Well for the biggest news we find out what we are having this week. Cast your vote on what you think? I will tell you that I am leaning towards girl only because everything about my pregnancy is exactly the same, blood pressure, weight gain, sickness, nonexistent heartburn, carrying high, babie heartbeat, and overall how I feel.

Well I have to leave with a pic of my sweet girl, here is my little girl with her best friend and cousin Kyah on her new toy.

Niah Getting Ready

Being Niah's mommy is an absolute joy. I have to say that every second I am with her I enjoy and every second I am not with her I am sad she is not by my side! (I do realize that may be weird or it may be because I only have one child.) She is growing up so fast and her mind is already hard at work. It would take me days to write everything she is doing now.

I will tell you I believe God is getting her ready for the addition to our family come January. She has came to every Dr. appt we have had, which is more than a normal person but I never really said you will be a big sister, we will have a baby type thing. In the last week out of no where she started looking at every child (newborn to 6) in stroller saying "baby," and wanting to go see them. She looks at my baby magazines on her own and flips through the pages and points at every picture of a baby and says, "baby." She does not even like baby dolls and we have no friends with children younger than her so on her own she is figuring out what a baby is and that she likes them. I have to say I believe that is the way our God works, he works to prepare even the littliest people for big changes in their lives.
This her reading a book, I couldn't get her to let me take a pic of her going through a magazine

Some of the very cute things that Niah has done lately:

Her Uncle J got her a monkey and we tell her go get monkey and she picks it up and hugs it and says, "Kyah." We are pretty sure she named it Kyah because anytime we say monkey she says "Kyah."

Niah does not care for stuffed animals and 2 now she has piled them all up and pointed at them and said, "this Kyah" I said, "You want to give to Kyah?" and she goes, "Yes!"

She will dial numbers on the phone, then hold it up to her ear, Carry on a conversation mostly about babies and crackers, then go bye bye and guess who she always says Hi to thats right she is always calling Kyah. Pretty sure Kyah is her favorite friend. If she see another child close their age she will throw hands in the air and ask for Kyah. We have to tell her Kyah is not here so play with so and so.

We love her so much and find it such a joy to watch her grow and learn.

Dark truth: Modern Day Slavery

The US ended slavery in 1865 at the end of the Civil War but everyday people, girls are enslaved not just in other countries but in the United States. They are enslaved and forced into the sex trade. Girls, young precious innocent girls' lives are threatened and forced into a life of prostitution. Where people are actually makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a DAY as these poor girls are stripped of all humanity daily, hourly as men take advantage of them and treat them worse than an animal. Sex trafficking is becoming bigger and bigger, for several reasons but one is the money involved. Drugs you can sell the product 1 time and it is gone, girls can be sold over and over. Sex trafficking is the world's fastest growing industry and most profitable criminal activity". It is believed well over 30 billion a year is made in the business. I watched a movie called, "Human Traffic," the man in the movie said, "Sex traffic is such a large enterprise in the US because unfortunately there is a demand."

That qoute has stuck with me since that movie. There is a demand for it and what is the US doing to stop it. I understand that world peace is not obtainable and I realize I can not save the world but I can do something. This subject, this terrible horrifying act has always been close to my heart but since becoming a mom to a daughter it is even more important. Those girls are DAUGHTERS, some as young as 5 and most not older than 25. They are someones, daughter, niece, sister, or grand daughter. They have been tricked, kidnapped, and threatened for their life (and their families lives) to perform over and over sexual acts.

What am I going to do to help, raise awareness, support financial, pray and look for signs in my area. I refuse to close my eyes to this terrible thing and hope and pray that more people will begin to call out Americans actually spending money on girls enslaved. With just less than 30 mins in research, I have found that the state of Missouri is a state with a huge demand for sex traffic. In Kansas City alone, at least 5 girls are rescued from being enslaved in sex traffic a month (a very surprising statistic but I actually know someone coerced and now enslaved in the KC area). I ask and beg of you to do the same.

This week my sister is hosting a Vault denim party in Joplin and all proceeds go to Project Rescue, read about it here I am making my way to Joplin to attend and give my financial support and hope anyone close by can come to. If you do not live close by you can shop online here and enter code 162348.

I post this picture because this is my little girl, my daughter, and my niece. I think of these two often when I think of the poor girls enslaved in Sex trafficking

This is my cousins, one 7 and one 19 and I think of their faces often when I am praying and pleading for the girls enslaved because they are the age of those girls.

I see my girls' faces and think sex trafficking has to be slowed down and stopped for them. Stopped for all of the other daughters, sisters, cousins, nieces, and grand daughters across the world.