Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Pinterest Cafe Rio Recipe Review

Hi Everyone!
If you haven't noticed yet, I love to cook! If you live in Utah you most possibly are acquainted with the restaurant Café Rio. I crave their food, and since I live 1500 miles away from Utah, I have to make my own. I looked to Pinterest for copycat recipes; and here is what I tried and my opinion of them!
Burrito | Cafe Rio Mexican Grill
First for the chicken I found the recipe here...
http://www.mandysrecipeboxblog.com/2011/04/cafe-rio-chicken.html  I use part breast and part thighs. The chicken was very good, a little dry, next time I will marinate it and that should take care of the dryness. It was even better the next day! This is a recipe I will definitely do again!

For the beans, rice and dressing I used the recipes found here...
http://www.clarkscondensed.com/diy/cafe-rio-copycat-recipes/  The Cilantro Rice was amazing, I could have eaten it plain. I won't do anything to change the recipe.  The Cilantro Lime dressing was also really good. It made quite a lot and I have had it on several salads since. Since there is only the two of us next time I will cute it in half. I still have half of a quart jar left. The Black Bean recipe was a little disappointing. I think I will tweak with this recipe a bit before I serve it to others. It was good, just not as good as I would have liked!

The Clarks Condensed blog where I found the main recipe is great, it also has a copycat recipe for the Sweet pork, which I haven't tried yet. What is a nice perk, she has the recipes sized for a family or for a crowd...very convenient if we want to have a Café Rio party in Illinois!

Monday, August 4, 2014

Garden Sourdough Bread in a Terra Cotta Pot



For this weeks sourdough I made bread with the bounties of summer. What makes this bread so fun is that I cooked it in Terra Cotta flower pots. It makes a great presentation for you table and any bread recipe can be cooked in terra cotta.

Now is a great time to get your flower pots, many stores have them on clearance, I wanted a few more, and was able to  get 4" pots on clearance for  19 cents. 4 inch is my favorite size. It will serve 2-3 people. I also have two 8" pots.  The pots cannot be glazed, inside or out, you want just plain ol' terra cotta. Make sure they are as smooth as possible on the inside. Wash the pots with warm soapy water and sit them out to dry thoroughly.  I usually wash them the night before. When dry, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Liberally spread your pots on the inside with vegetable shortening.  Place them on a foil lined cookie sheet then in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove them and let cool for 5-10 minutes. Re-apply more shortening and repeat the process. I usually do this 4-5 times until the terra cotta can hold no more shortening. On the last application I also do the outside just to make it look nice. Now your flower pot is ready to use. It can be used over and over now with bread, as long as you grease the pot with either shortening or spray oil before adding your dough. 
 

This makes a really cute gift, but for some reason I never get my pots back, I guess people don't understand the work to get them ready!

For the Garden Sourdough Bread Recipe click on my Sourdough page!