Friday, March 11, 2011

"Cafe Rio" Pork


**This is my version of one of our SLC favorites! I have experimented and combined many different recipes, and this seems as close to Cafe Rio's as I could get!

**This is the party-sized recipe... it will serve a crowd! Halve it for a family-sized serving, or make the whole recipe, eat what you need and freeze the rest for another day! My kids are always begging for more!!

5-6 pound boneless pork roast
2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper- Not DIET!!
1/2 cup brown sugar
1-2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 cup water
1 large (7 oz) can diced green chilies
1 large (28 oz) can red enchilada sauce
1 1/2-2 cups brown sugar

After trimming excess fat, put the pork roast in a tupperware or heavy duty ziploc bag to marinate. Add 2-3 cups of Dr Pepper and about 1/2 c. of brown sugar. Marinate in fridge overnight.

In the morning drain marinade and put pork, 2 cups Dr Pepper, 1/2 cup water, and 1-2 tsp garlic salt in crock pot on high for about 3-4 hours or on low for 8 hours (I do mine on high until lunch-time). Remove pork from crock pot, scrape off excess fat and drain any liquid left in the pot. Shred pork with two forks. Return pork to crock pot.

In blender combine chilies, enchilada sauce and 1 1/2 to 2 cups brown sugar (you can add a little more or less to taste) and blend until smooth. Pour over shredded pork in crockpot and then mix in 1 1/2 to 2 cups Dr Pepper (add more if sauce is too thick). Cook on low for at least 2 hours. I usually let it simmer on low until dinner-time! Serve with tortillas, black beans, cheese, cilantro-lime rice, salsa, guacamole and lettuce for a deluxe burrito, or with the same toppings over lettuce, topped with Creamy Cilantro-Lime Ranch and garnished with cilantro and crushed tortilla chips, for a fabulous salad!

2 comments:

AUBRY said...

This recipe looks like the best one so far out of the rest i have seen. But I don't have a crock pot and I really want to make this. Do you have any suggestion on how I could make this with out a crock pot? Any other alternatives?

Alli grins said...

Hi Aubry! I found a Slow-Cooker to Oven conversion chart and based on the recipe's 8 hour cooking time on LOW, I'd recommend increasing the Dr. Pepper to 3-4 cups (you need more liquid when cooking in the oven) and bake for 1 1/2 hours at 325 degrees Fahrenheit, or until a meat thermometer reads 155 degrees in the center. Remove from the oven & shred the meat. Then, pour the enchilada sauce mixture over the meat and return it to the oven for another 30-45 minutes. This should work just fine, even without a slow-cooker. Hope that helps!

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