How was the weekend? Are you sick of turkey leftovers yet? I made this Turkey Barley Soup yesterday and plan to eat it for every meal until it’s gone. It’s so good. We spent the whole weekend decorating the house for Christmas! It was so fun. We made Gingersnaps and turned on Christmas music. I decorated the tree while Eric untangled lights, Truman only broke 3 ornaments, and Valentine only ate one Christmas ornament hook. (Just kidding, I got it out of her mouth in time. She is a sneaky one. A few weeks ago she got into the craft bin and ate a bunch of googly eyes without me knowing. I found out the next day when I changed her diaper and it was STARING BACK AT ME. I’m pretty sure this is TMI especially for a food blog, but I was so shocked for a minute and then dying laughing. Everyone that I’ve told this story to has asked me if I took a picture. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? NO GROSS!!) Anyway. Sorry about that. Back to the food. So do you guys have an Instant Pot yet?? I have an electric pressure cooker from another brand that works basically the same, but I’m thinking of getting an Instant Pot because of all the other features it has (yogurt maker, rice cooker, etc.) Basically with an electric pressure cooker you can get slow cooked foods in a fraction of the time. For example, this Cafe Rio pork recipe takes 3-5 hours on high in a slow cooker, and 8-10 hours on low. In a pressure cooker it’s done in about an hour. One time at Christmas I was making this Barbacoa Beef for my whole extended family (25+ people) and I set up 2 crock pots with the beef inside. We went out shopping all day, and then came home to one crock pot full of delicious beef, and one with raw meat because I had turned it on but forgotten to plug it in. So my mom busted out her pressure cooker (not an electric one, we did it on the stove) and the beef was done in under an hour. Pressure cookers are really nice to have on hand for last minute things, and electric ones are SO easy to use. I’m definitely going to be posting more Instant Pot recipes on The Food Charlatan! Don’t worry, I’ll probably always include the slow cooker instructions too. So if you don’t live in Utah you may have never heard of Cafe Rio. It’s a Mexican restaurant that is kind of like Costa Vida or Chipotle, except they are famous for their INCREDIBLE sweet pork. You can put it on anything: a salad, in a burrito, enchiladas, whatever. (That’s the beauty of Mexican food.) It is very concentrated. More of a paste than a sauce. The packaging says you are supposed to mix it with chicken broth to make a sauce from it, which makes sense. But for this recipe we are just dumping the whole thing in the pot and mixing it up with some Coke. So weird. So, so good. The other special part about today’s recipe is the Cilantro-Tomatillo Ranch. It is NOT optional. If you make this recipe without the ranch, you are not experiencing Cafe Rio pork. It’s a mixture or buttermilk ranch, tomatillos, and cilantro and it is SOOO amazing. I eat the stuff with a spoon. Even if you are making burritos or something that’s not a salad, top the pork with the ranch. It’s an AMAZING combo. This recipe is so nice to have on hand for busy December days. There’s always so much going on during Christmas that sometimes I just forget to make dinner. You can make this last minute (in the Instant Pot) or plan ahead with the slow cooker, and come home to hot food ready to go. It’s also good for dinner parties or large events, like a family reunion. Everyone loves a good burrito bar (there are so many possible toppings!) I hope you get to try this one out! Don’t forget to plug it in! UPDATE I’ve gotten several comments from people saying that this recipe didn’t work in the Instant Pot; it never came to pressure and they got a burn message. I’m so sorry! It worked for me when I tried it. After several comments, I decided to see what was going on. I bought an Instant Pot (I had been using a different brand pressure cooker) and tested this several times. You guys were right! The sauce was too thick for the pot to come to pressure. I’m so sorry to any of you who tried this and had problems. I don’t know why it worked for me when I tested this the first time. But I have a solution and I have updated the recipe! Instead of mixing the Adobo sauce in with the Coke, you’re going to layer it on top of the meat. Then just stir it in after the pork is cooked. All the details are below in the recipe. Please reach out if you have any problems with the recipe!
More delicious Mexican recipes to love!
Better Than Chipotle Cilantro Lime Rice » so much flavor and the PERFECT rice for these burritos Traditional Carne Guisada (Stewed Beef for Tacos) « everyone loves this, and no hard-to-find-ingredients. Barbacoa Beef « this is one of my all time fav’s! Don’t let the bad photo fool you! Traditional Tejano Pinto Beans (Slow Cooker) « this would be so good to make alongside the Cafe Rio Pork!
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