Cafe Rio Pork Salad

Pork Salad from Cafe Rio or Costa Vida is my all-time favorite meal. But since we live so far away from both of those great restaurants, every once in a while I buy a pork roast and make my own salad or tacos. I've tried a few recipes for the pork, but I think I've figured out how I like to make it. My secret ingredient in the sauce is adding a little BBQ sauce.

Here's a picture of my salad using some leftover pork that I had for lunch today. It didn't have any cilantro-rice on it, but it was still yummy.

Cafe Rio-Style Pork
recipe by Jenny

2 -4 lb. pork roast
1 1/2 c. coca-cola
salt and pepper
garlic salt/powder

Season pork with salt and pepper and garlic salt or powder. Place in crock-pot and pour coke over the meat. Cook for 6 -8 hours on low, or 3 -4 hours on high.

Remove pork from crockpot and shred. Discard juices from crockpot.

In a saucepan simmer for 10 minutes or so:
1 c. ketchup
1/2 c. red enchilada sauce
1/2 c. brown sugar
4 oz. diced green chilies
1 c. coca-cola
1/4 c. BBQ sauce (from a bottle or make your own)

Add to crockpot the shredded pork and sauce. Cook on low until ready to serve.

This makes a lot of pork. I usually put some in the fridge for two days of leftovers and then freeze three bags or tupperware full of pork to have tacos later.

Here's what I like to put on my salad:
Flour tortilla on bottom (these homemade wheat tortillas are yummy)
Cheddar Cheese
Cafe Rio-style Pork
Cilantro-lime Rice
Black Beans
Tomatoes
Lettuce or Spinach
Guacamole
Salsa
Cilantro Ranch Dressing

Click here to find the recipes that I like for cilantro-lime rice, black beans, and tomatillo dressing. Also, Picky Palate has a good simpler version of the pork salad too.

One Hour Rolls

These rolls are amazing! I've been making these rolls since 2001 when I was a newlywed and my sister-in-law shared the recipe with me. The rolls are light, fluffy, easy to make and they only take one hour! And delicious too! I've made these rolls more times than I can count, so I've perfected the art of making them. Here are some step-by-step instructions with pictures for you. Here's what you'll need. I buy pretty much all of the ingredients in this recipe at Sam's club, thus the huge containers. You need warm water, yeast, oil, sugar, salt, egg and flour. In the mixer bowl, add warm water (not hot), oil, sugar and yeast. Mix together. After ten or fifteen minutes the yeast mixture should be puffed up like this. Time to add the salt and beaten egg. Then mix in the flour. (I've used a mixture of half wheat and half white flour successfully.) Keep adding flour until the dough is manageable. It will be a little sticky, b

Week 394 Menu

Hi there! This week is flying by! So excited that we've been having blue skies and warmer weather. Our snow is almost all melted and little bulbs are sprouting in the flower beds. However, we had our 10th snow/ice day last week!!! Hopefully it was the last one. Life has been busy, busy and I need to plan out the rest of our week's menus, even though it's already Thursday. Here's what we've eaten so far and what I'm planning: Monday: chicken stirfry, rice/quinoa Tuesday: breakfast for dinner Wednesday: flatbread pizzas Thursday: roasted butternut squash, pasta, chicken sausage Friday: tacos Saturday: leftovers Sunday: pot roast, mashed potatoes, one hour rolls Alrighty, that's what we're eating this week. How about you? What's on your menu this week? Feel free to share. I love it when you do! More from Jenny:

Don't like your house to smell like food? I've got a kitchen tip for that!

I have a smallish, one story house and if I cook food that is kind of smelly, like onions, the smell tends to linger in every room. This is a pet peeve of mine and (also my husband's). Over the years I've found a few ways to cook smelly food without smelling up the kitchen. Use your garage! I use my garage quite often to cook things in. I open the window and it airs out, especially when you open the garage door. I'm sure my neighbors wonder what I'm cooking. I've used two different kitchen appliances in the garage: my crockpot and my food dehydrator. Crockpot - I did this very thing today since I'm simmering chicken, onions, carrots and celery to make chicken noodle soup tonight. I don't want my house to smell like onions all day, so I plugged it in on my husband's workbench. Food dehydrator - when I make jerky, I plug the food dehydrator in in the garage. I don't really want my house to smell like meat for hours

What is on your menu this week?

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