Crafting, DIY and LIfe
Last month, I shared this chocolate salted caramel milkshake over at Sugar Bee Crafts! It is so delicious that I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss out either!
I went out to lunch the other day with a co-worker and had the most amazing milkshake. It was a blend of salted caramel and chocolate…delicious! Of course, I wanted to try and create the milkshake at home so I could enjoy it anytime I wanted. And thus, this chocolate salted caramel milkshake was born.
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.
Today, we are going to round out your Cinco de Mayo celebration meal. Cinco de Mayo drink recipes are so easy to come by {think margaritas, mojitos and beer} but this one offers something a little different from the regular old margarita.
How about a delicious combination of passion fruit juice, agave syrup and a little spice from jalapeno infused tequila?
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 
Cinco de Mayo isn’t a real celebration without a drink to enjoy with your meal {especially if that meal is a southwestern style turkey burger}. of course, all good Cinco de Mayo drink recipes have one important ingredients: tequila!
Back when we were visiting New York, we ate dinner at a fantastic Mexican restaurant with amazing {seriously, ah-mazing} margaritas. They weren’t your standard margaritas though and my favorite one prompted me to head home and make one of the key ingredients for future drinks.
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}.
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 
I have a sweet tooth…a big one. Some days, I think all my teeth are sweet because my cravings are that strong. One of my absolute favorite things is salted caramel sauce. I love it on ice cream, in desserts…with just about anything sweet.
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.
Yesterday, as part this flashback series, I shared one of my favorite warm weather snacks. Today, I’m going to unearth this one from the archives so I can share with you my favorite Asian slaw salad. It is made at least once a week at our house once the weath turns warm because it goes with just about anything we grill!
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Ok, you know I’m all about sharing with you tasty {but easy} recipes! I’m bringing this one out just in time for all the upcoming Spring and Summer picnics and potlucks. Why?
Because it P-E-R-F-E-C-T for them.
It’s an easy to throw together salad that holds up well!
What do you need to make it?
Cabbage (I use a mixture of napa and green. Or, when I’m lazy, I just pick up a bag of cole slaw mix)
Slivered almonds
Green onions
Sesame seeds
1 package of oriental flavored ramen
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp sesame oil
Now, let’s get cooking!
