Cafe Rio Pork Barbacoa

5 - 6 pounds pork tenderloin (or roast)
21 ounces Dr. Pepper
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 cloves garlic
1 (7 ounce) can chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
6 ounces medium red taco sauce
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Place pork in the crock pot and make sauce.

Here's the trick with the sauce: Remove chipotle chilies from the can and put in the measuring cup that you'll measure your Dr. Pepper with. Pour Dr. Pepper over them and remove the chilies (and throw away) just to get the sauce off and then continue pouring Dr. Pepper into the measuring cup until you reach the full 21 ounces. You'll also need to rinse out the chipotle can with the Dr. Pepper to get all the adobo sauce out. Do NOT use the chipotle peppers (I did this and it was killer hot). You can add 1 or 2 for a kick if you want.

Blend all ingredients together in either a blender or with an immersion blender until combined and pour over the pork. Cook on high for 5 hours or on low for 8 hours until the pork is easily shreddable. If you've never had a Cafe Rio Pork Salad, what you'll want to do to make this is take a flour tortilla and melt some cheese on it. From there, here's the layers:

White Rice (I'll post my recipe later for Cilantro Lime Rice)
Black Beans (I just used canned that I heat up on the stove and add seasoned salt and pepper with some garlic powder)
Romaine Lettuce, chopped
Pico de Gallo
Guacamole
Cilantro Ranch Tomatillo Dressing

Cafe Rio Rice

3 cups water
3 cups rice
4 tsp chicken bouillon
4 tsp minced garlic
½ bunch cilantro
1 can green chiles
¾ tsp salt
1 Tb butter
½ onion chopped

Blend cilantro, green chiles and onion together in blender. Bring water to a boil and add all ingredients. Simmer covered 30 minutes.

Bajio Chicken

5 chicken breasts
1/2 cup salsa
1 Tbsp cumin
1/2 cup brown sugar (more to taste)
1 4 oz. can diced green chilies
6 oz. Sprite (1/2 can)

Combine all ingredients in a crock pot. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. Remove chicken and shred. Return to crock pot and cook 1 more hour. Thicken the juices with a little cornstarch mixed in water.

Serve with flour tortillas, lettuce, cheese, black beans and any other taco fixings.

If you want it spicer rather than sweeter add a hotter salsa and more green chilies.

Julie's Cafe Rio Style Black Beans

First, soak your dried beans overnight.
Put them into a bowl and cover them with water, to a level that is probably about 2 inches above the beans.
The next day, begin by dicing an onion. You want to have about 1/2 cup of diced onions. So, if it is a larger onion, then you will only use half, smaller onion, the entire thing.
Put the diced onion into your crockpot.
Next mince 2-3 cloves of garlic.
Add one can of green chiles (mild)
drain the beans and add them to the crockpot.
next add water (depending on the amount of beans add the appropriate amount -
it's on the packaging).
add chicken bouillon to the water (I like to use the mexican chicken bouillon made by Knorr) Use the appropriate amount for the amount of water you have just added (read the label)
place the lid on the crockpot and cook on low until the beans are tender.
(usually this takes about 8 hours)

Christmas Must

What is your "must make" at Christmas time?

And are you willing to share the recipe?

Cinnamon Rolls in Carribean Blue

Eventually I'll get tired of this I suppose, but it's too fun right now. Here is my next dish in the dish.

Cinnamon Rolls

1 c. sugar
2 c. warm milk
2 c. mashed taters (reconstituted dry flakes work fine)
2 eggs
1/2 c. shortening
2 pkgs. yeast
2 T. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
7-8 c. flour

Beat sugar, milk, potatoes, eggs and shortening until smooth. Separately, dissolve the yeast in 1/2 c. warm water with 2 T. sugar. Then add it to mixture and mix. Add salt, flour and vanilla and mix like bread. Let rise and mix down. Let rise again. Then roll out on floured board and brush with softened butter, then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Roll up in long roll. Cut in 1 or 2 inch slices and place in greased pan. Let rise and bake at 350^ for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Frost with burnt butter glaze:

2 cubes of butter, melted
1 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. canned milk
powdered sugar

Heat until clear and dissolved. Add enough powdered sugar for a thin frosting (not glaze). Frost rolls while hot.

I used my leftover mashed potatoes that were seasoned with garlic, onion, etc. and it was just fine. Also, I made the dough the night before and let it rise all night. Then just let them rise in the pan in the am. I made two large cookie pans of these along with the special pan.

But really, this recipe is really all about the frosting.
mmmmmmm

Easy Lasagna in Carribean Blue

Just because no one else is really posting anything and I feel like being obnoxious, here's another recipe that I made in my new pan.

Easy Lasagna

1 lb. hamburger
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 c. water
3 c. mozzarella cheese
2 eggs
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese
16 oz. cottage cheese
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 c. parsley
8 lasagna noodles

Brown hamburger. Drain oil and then add spaghetti sauce (I like the one with sausage flavoring) and water. Let simmer. Mix rest of ingredients together. (except noodles, duh) Put 1 c. sauce on bottom of special pan. Layer uncooked noodles (I hate cooking the noodles) 3 down 1 broken one across bottom. Then 1/2 of sauce on top. Then 1/2 of cheese mixture on top of that. Then layer the noodles again (just switch the bottom one to other side if you know what I mean). Sauce, then cheese. Cover with foil and cook at 350* for 1 hour. Remove foil and cook for another 10 minutes. And yeah, I know my pan looks used. Bummer. But I swear the lasagna tasted better this time - must have been the pan!