The Reality of it All

The Ingredients: Cake Mix, Oil, eggs, and water for chocolate cake
sugar, strawberries, lemon, eggs, salt, and whipping cream for the mousse
and of course icing!

Last week Erin was house sitting for a couple at church and I spent most of my time with her. We took the opportunity Tuesday night to have dinner with the guys. We decided on fajitas, black beans, rice, and of course chips and dip. I volunteered to make dessert, and I wanted to try something different. Everyone, including me would have been perfectly happy with brownies. However, I was feeling adventurous and decided to make a chocolate cake with strawberry mousse. Thanks to Pinterest I found a recipe that looked pretty cheap and easy, and most importantly delicious. The recipe called for homemade chocolate cake, but I wasn't feeling that adventurous. I just went with a Pillsbury Devils Food cake mix. I made the chocolate cake into two round pans because I wanted to make it a layer cake like the recipe called for. I had never made a layer cake before and since I was home alone I knew it would be interesting. I let the cakes cool for about fifteen minutes then carefully ran a butter knive around the edges. Then plopped them out onto wax paper. After letting them cool out of the pans for five minutes I used a long bread knive my mom has to make them into layers. Then, before placing my first half of one  round cake onto the tupperware I put some icing in the middle of the tupperware I was going to put the cake on. Then instead of lifting the cake I simply sat the lid onto the cake and then switches it over. This worked pretty well actually, but would have been easier with another set of hands. Then, I began making the mousse. Here is the recipe that I used. The mousse seemed pretty simple, but it was runny ...really runny. So I suggest that you make sure you whip your whipping cream really well. The direction also says to mix your whipping cream into your strawberry puree, but I would think folding it in would work much better. I also had never made a mousse before so I wasn't sure about beating the egg whites. It said to beat them until stiff, however, I wasn't sure what consistency of stiff it needed. Next time I make it I will be sure to beat it a little longer. The directions don't call for it to sit in the fridge if you use it for a filling, but I also believe that would make the mousse a little stiffer as desired. Another  warning, you will need strawberries to place in between the layers as well. It didn't state that until halfway through the instructions so I had already used mine. I didn't have any fresh, so I used frozen strawberries that I just happened to have in the freezer. Because the mousse was so runny and not staying on the cake layers I didn't use all of the mousse. At this point my cake was crooked, and mousse was running out the edges. It was basically a disaster. I decided that I had to finish what I had started, and go ahead with the icing, which is my least favorite part of baking. This, was the most annoying part of the whole adeventure. I had a difficult time, actually it was more than a difficult time icing the cake. As I was struggling greatly at this I thought to myself "there is no way I'm this type of Proverbs 31 woman". I eventually slapped the icing on and called it a day. I decided it was probably the uggliest cake that ever had been created in my house, but it actually turned out pretty good. I really wanna try it again with a little better mousse, and of course extra icing. I wouldn't call it an epic fail, just reality. Oh Pinterest how you conceive our minds into thinking we can create what we see, but I can have my cake and eat it too!

The finished product!

Crafty Pants

My dad built this box for my mom for her to get her tomatoes from the garden. It looked plain so I decided to paint it and make it look a little more fun.

His Power and Protection

Last week was particularly hot, more than hot, like fry an egg on the sidewalk and it get burnt hot. However, Sunday night as I left work at midnight a storm was brewing. By storm I mean the craziest lightning I have ever seen in my entire life. There was that lightning that lights up the entire sky and strike the ground lightning. I truly had never seen anything like it. As I was driving I was amazed at the power of God being shown through the lightning. Then after a couple of miles it started to rain really hard. At this point in my drive home is when it started to get scary. I had my wipers on the highest setting, and I started to notice that they were acting funny. I turned the speed down a notch and as soon as I did that they ran into each other and got tangled up and broke. Keep in mind that it's storming and after midnight. The first thing I did was pray. I knew that I had to get off the road, but I wasn't sure how considering I couldn't see anything do to the fact I had wipers that weren't working. I thought I was near a school and I was hoping I could pull off in that parking lot. What I didn't know at the time was that I had already passed it. I was going really slow just trying to get my car off the road and ended up on an embankment in the grass. I called my parents rather upset, and after calling 911 and waiting for what seemed like years a car pulled off to help me. The guy that was walking to my car just happened to be a guy that worked with me in Jonesborough, I could have jumped in his arms I was so excited to see him. After screaming that it was me he finally realized who I was. I was blown away that the Lord would take care of me in this regard as well. The cops got there and shortly after, the wrecker and my parents arrived. I was safe and sound and blown away by the protection of my Jesus. Yes my windshield wipers broke and I ended up off the road and was really shaken up. However, so much could have happened that would have been much worse. There weren't any cars near me when it happened so I didn't hit any cars. I was also at the bottom of a hill on a major road that was wet, so a car could have easily hit me while I was trying to get off the road. I also could have slid down the embankment or hit something as I was trying to get off the road. None of this happened to me.  God was truly watching out for and once again his mighty wings of protection were over me Sunday night. Not only did I witness his protection that night, but I was also able to witness the power of Him through the storm. This reminded me of what I had read in Zechariah that day during my quiet time at lunch. Even though the Lord still gets angry, he is able to show his mercy and his compassion at the same time, just as I witnessed his power and protection.

I pinned it, and We did it!

Last week my parents were out of town and I had the house to my house, so what does that mean! Time for a girls night of cooking and making a mess in the kitchen! The girls came over and we enjoyed some time in the pool for a while before we headed to food city  for supplies for dinner. We decided on cilantro lime chicken, black beans, rice, and sauteed peppers! We had a blast being super loud at the grocery store, and even had a customer exclaim near the meat department "do you have conversations like this throughout the entire store, can I video you? I'd make a killing off of you guys!" After spending longer the necessary at the grocery store we make it home to finally cook supper. A few months back I posted a pin on my recipe board on pinterest for cilantro lime chicken for the crockpot. We made the exact same recipe but just cooked the chicken and then added all the ingredients in a sauce pan. Here is the recipe , but we added green chili's and a little extra cilantro than the recipe calls for. Our meal was pretty yummy and we had a great time with each other having great conversations! Then rest of the night included playing the piano and singing silly songs which was hilarious and resulted in lots of tears from laughing so hard of course. We did this of course when our cupcakes were cooking in the oven. We chose to make Mini Oreo Surprise Cupcakes. The only thing that I did differently in this recipe was chop up the oreos and add it to the cream cheese mixture instead of just placing the Oreo on top of the cream cheese mixture. Definitely worth trying if you are an Oreo fan!