Cafe Rio Recipes

Last weekend Tyler and I invited a bunch of friends over for some fake Cafe Rio food (popular Mexican restaurant in Utah) and games. I'm so glad they came - Tyler and I had so much fun! I hope you all did too! We played Guesstures, which after this summer, is one of my very favorite group games. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. :( Everyone asked me for the recipes I used, so I thought I'd just post them on our blog!

Disclaimer: I am not trying to take credit for these recipes. I got them from multiple sources: blogs of strangers I found through Google, comments on those blogs, and my sister-in-law, Mary. I would site all of these references more carefully, but they all seemed to get their versions of the recipes from similar ambiguous resources. Additionally, I kind of combined and tweaked them to my liking and time constraints. I therefore find citing my exact references rather futile. I hope that's okay with you!

Note: As mentioned above, there are several versions of these recipes floating around the internet - I have only tried the versions below. I liked them. I don't know if you'd like the other ones better.

Another Note: I don't like very much garlic and I don't like things very spicy. I modified the recipes accordingly. So if you like the opposite of me, you'd probably like someone else's versions better.
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Cafe Rio Chicken
5 lbs chicken breast (boneless, skinless of course)
1 (8 oz) bottle of Kraft Zesty Italian Dressing
1 T chili powder
1 T cumin
2 garlic cloves, minced

Put all ingredients together in a large crockpot. Cook on high for 3-4 hours. Remove chicken and have your husband shred with fork. Keep all the juice and combine with shredded chicken to keep moist.

Cafe Rio Pork
3.5 lbs pork roast (boneless)
1 (8 oz) bottle of taco sauce [It really does exist... says, "Taco Sauce" in the bottle - look in the Mexican food section.]
1 T cumin
1 c brown sugar
1 can Coca-Cola (don't use diet)

(1) Cook pork in water in crockpot on high for 4-5 hours. (2) Cut pork into several smaller pieces and dump out water. (3) Add the rest of the ingredients to the crockpot with the pork. Cook on high for 2 more hours or until the pork is shred-able. (4) Shred pork and return to sauce. (5) Serve.

**Because I wanted to serve both kinds of meats and only have one crockpot, I actually made the pork in the morning and refrigerated it in the afternoon. To rewarm it, I just put it in a saucepan on medium for a few minutes and it worked great.

Cafe Rio White-with-Green-Specks Dressing
2 c mayo
2 c sour cream
10 sprigs of cilantro
12 oz salsa verde sauce
2 green onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 jalapeno pepper (including seeds)
juice of 1 lime
1 t salt

Place all ingredients (except the salsa verde) in a blender (or food processor) and blend until smooth. Pour into large bowl. Add salsa verde and mix by hand. [You could add it in the blender if yours is big enough - mine isn't.] Lasts 2 weeks in the fridge.
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I should also let you know that there are recipes out there for their Pico de Gallo salsa, black beans and their lime rice. I didn't make any of them. I just served plain rice (okay, I browned it in butter before adding the water, but that's it!) and plain black beans, and I still think it tasted fabulous. If you want those recipes, just google it and you'll get some pretty fast. For cheese, I just bought a pre-shredded Mexican mix. Supposedly "cotija" cheese is the one they use, but I couldn't find it here in the Burgh - at least not at Giant Eagle.

Hope you enjoy!!