food Archives - Just Us Four

Menu Planning Help: WTCW #101

May 22, 2013 By Shannah 2 Comments

Busy moms and dads can use all the meal planning help they can find. That is one of the reasons I started this whole What to Cook Wednesday series. It allows me to find new recipes to feed my family AND provides some menu planning help to my readers. Win win in my mind!

So, since it is mid-week and what to cook is probably on your mind, let’s get started!

Sunday: Let’s start off our week with a delicious meal of creamy polenta and chorizo. Throw in some roasted green beans and we have one delicious meal.

Monday: Mondays are always busy as we get thrust back into the work/school week after the weekend. Ginger, garlic and chili shrimp are perfect for these kinds of night because it cooks up so fast.

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Filed Under: cooking, food, WTCW Tagged With: Eating, Menu Planning, recipes, wednesday, weekend cooking, weekly menu, weeknight cooking

Yummy Salsa Verde Recipe

May 15, 2013 By Shannah 12 Comments

The love for Tex-Mex and Mexican food in our house is pretty obvious! You can see it week after week in my What to Cook Wednesday weekly menus. Plus, we’re regulars at our local Mexican restaurant and you’ll always find salsa in the house.
Typically, I focus on more traditional salsa and guacamole {although, I have been known to make the guacamole with bacon!}, but I decided I wanted to try my hand at a salsa verde recipe for something a little different.

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Filed Under: cooking, food, recipes Tagged With: cooking, Food, Just Us Four Recipes, recipes, salsa verde recipe, snacks, Tex-Mex

Weekly Menu: What to Cook Wednesday #100

May 15, 2013 By Shannah 1 Comment

Happy Wednesday!

I love that our Wednesdays here on the blog are filled with delicious recipes. Putting together a weekly menu is so much easier when you can find inspiration all around blog land. One of my favorite parts of the week is looking through all of the recipes I find and narrowing them down into a menu for the week. I guess that is how this little What to Cook Wednesday series has made it to 100!

Let’s see what the 100th edition brings us in terms of food…

Sunday: You can add prosciutto to just about anything and I am happy. That probably a big reason why chicken with prosciutto, argula and fontina caught my eye.

Monday: We don’t traditionally do pasta on Mondays but, as a meatless option, I fell in love with the idea of lemony spinach and goat cheese linguine.

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Filed Under: cooking, food, weekly menu, WTCW Tagged With: Eating, Food, recipes, weekly menu ideas

Boozy Baking: Red Wine Cupcakes with Wine Cream Cheese Frosting

May 1, 2013 By Shannah 13 Comments

The boozy baking continues here at Just Us Four. I couldn’t just stop with the whoopie pies so I decided to try out some cupcakes too. After all, cupcakes are where my love of boozy baking originated.

After a few {dozen} texts with Liz, I settled on trying red velvet cupcakes first. She was very supportive and assured me that I couldn’t really mess this up. I mean…I was using wine and nothing is bad with wine

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Filed Under: cooking, food, recipes Tagged With: Boozy Baking, cooking, Dessert, Just Us Four Recipes, recipes

Cinco de Mayo Recipes: Turkey Cilantro Burgers with Tomatillo Sauce

April 30, 2013 By Shannah 29 Comments

So, I was born in a Virginia…rural Virginia…where fried chicken, corn on the cob and biscuits rule. Sweet tea…it was my equivalent to milk/juice most kids drink. I didn’t have sushi or a million other “ethnic” foods until I was well into my teens. There were definitely no Cinco de Mayo recipes made in our house growing up either!

BUT, I am convinced my mother must have lived in Texas or Mexico for some portion of her pregnancy because my love of Tex-Mex and Mexican food runs deeps. Like…I’ll drive an hour each way in traffic to get to my favorite Mexican restaurant without so much as a complaint. Once I started to fall in love with cooking, it is all Tex-Mex…all.the.time. Hence the reason, I felt the need to take a traditional “American” dish and take it South {and a little West}.

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Filed Under: cooking, food, recipes Tagged With: Burgers, Cinco de Mayo Recipes, Just Us Four Recipes, Southwest, Tex-Mex

Guest Room Upgrades: Candy for Dad

April 29, 2013 By Shannah 4 Comments

One of our recent projects has been making our extra bedrooms into a true guest rooms: places where guests can rest comfortably and really feel at home when visiting. Along with changing the bedding, making headboards and adding in art and extra furniture, I wanted to make it easy for guests to find things they might be looking for {i.e. items they might have forgotten}.

It started with a little basket of items that guest might have forgotten similar to the way hotels put out small toiletries.

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Filed Under: decorating, food, Our House, Sponsors Tagged With: Clever Girls Collective, Guest Room Changes, Werthers Sugar Free Candies

Boozy Baking: Strawberry Prosecco Cupcakes

April 24, 2013 By Shannah 23 Comments

By now, I am sure you guys are all thinking that I am some kind of super wine-o with all of the boozy baking going on around here! I mean, we’ve had boozy whoopie pies and now I am bringing you a new cupcake with wine!

These cupcakes are different though…it is sparkling wine after all

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Filed Under: cooking, food, recipes Tagged With: cooking, desserts, Food, Just Us Four Recipes, recipes

Boozy Baking: Orange Riesling Whoopie Pies

April 17, 2013 By Shannah 19 Comments

I have a good friend who is known for her boozy desserts. She was the first person to really introduce me to the idea of a “boozy” cupcake and I was hooked from then on. Boozy baking has become a regular thing in the Just Us Four house since then.

She’s been pretty busy with a little bundle of joy and hasn’t had much time to feed my cupcake cravings. So, I decided to undertake a little boozy baking of my own.
Full Disclosure: By baking, I definitely mean starting with a boxed mix…exact measurements required for real baking are just too much for my brain.

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Filed Under: food, recipes Tagged With: baking, desserts, Just Us Four Recipes

Breakfast Makeovers – Green Smoothies

April 10, 2013 By Shannah 15 Comments

Last week, I shared the details of the 5 week weight loss challenge I participated in during February/March. The hardest week for me was definitely the final week where we focused on eliminating processed foods from our diet.
Breakfast was the most difficult because I am typically at work with little access to something to cook with. No processed foods meant I was going to need to do some breakfast makeovers stat.

Enter the green smoothie…

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Filed Under: cooking, food Tagged With: breakfast makeovers, Food, green smoothies

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

April 9, 2013 By Shannah 10 Comments

You guys remember my gig as a contributor over at Sugar Bee Crafts, right? I am loving it. Mandy is super supportive and a great person to learn from!

Last month, I shared a recipe for homemade ricotta cheese that I am bringing over here today to share with you in case you missed it.

The origin of this recipe dates back to a random Friday night when I was super pregnant with my youngest. I was spending some downtime hanging out with my two closest friends {they’re married!} while the Mathlete was indulging his racing pastime. We were watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and they shared a brief rundown of how to make homemade ricotta.

Now, a lot of you might question why to even bother making something homemade that is so readily available at the store. I certainly did…until I made it!

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