Cafe Rio Salad

For those of you who live far away from Cafe Rio, I think this is a pretty good fix.Dressing:
2C + 2 T Ranch Dressing
2 Garlic cloves, minced
Juice from 2 limes
1/4 t tabasco sauce
1/4C salsa verde
1-2 T cream cheese
3/4 bunch of cilantro

BLEND TOGETHER IN BLENDER UNTIL SMOOTH

For Chicken:
3 chicken breasts cut into strips or shredded (I shred mine)
1 8oz can Coke
3 T brown sugar

Marinade the chicken in the coke and brown sugar for 3o minutes. When you're ready to eat, put it in a skillet to heat it up, then drain before serving. Play with the chicken to coke/br. sugar ratio...it depends on how much you're making.

For Pork:
3-5 lb Pork Loin or Pork Roast
1 ½ cans coke classic
1 c. sugar
7oz can chipotle chilies in adobo sauce –provides a lot of heat (or plain adobo sauce for sweeter sauce)
1 tsp dry ground mustard heaping
1 tsp heaping cumin
1 tsp minced garlic

Remove the chilies (throw chilies away) from adobo sauce add all ingredients except pork in a blender. Rinse can of adobo sauce with coke to get all the sauce out. Blend in blender until well mixed. Place pork in crock pot and pour sauce over it. Cook for 4-6 on high or 7-9 hours on low.

Carefully turn roast over halfway through. Cook in sauce until it is pull apart tender and shred. Put shredded meat back into sauce.

RICE
1 c. rice
2 c. water
3 cubes chicken boullion
½ tsp dried onion
¼ bunch cilantro
1 tbsp oil
1 fresh lime

Okay, when I make this, I usually do chicken, but the pork is really good too. Also, I usually don't go to all the effort to make the rice...a lot of times I use chicken flavored rice-a-roni, or rice pilaf. Really, anything will work, but the cilantro rice is yummy.

This is how I layer my salad:
Homemade tortillas are the best, or the yummy ones they have here but for some reason not in OREGON...but anything will work.

Tortilla
Rice
Black Beans
Shredded Chicken or Pork
Shredded lettuce
Tomatoes
Tortilla chips (I like the crunch)
Guacamole
Cilantro on top

For me, what makes the salad is the yummy tortilla, the marinated meat, the dressing and the cilantro. It's my FAVORITE! I hope if you've never had it, you'll try it. Let me know what you think!