Cafe Rio for the poor

We've been watching our pennies lately which makes it difficult to spend money on going out to eat.  There's only so much you can do with chicken and rice and I even made Jon go get the propane refilled because I needed another way to cook and add flavor.  We grilled for 3 days straight and it was delicious.  It came time again to throw something else into the mix yesterday so I decided to throw some chicken in the crock pot with some green enchilada sauce that we happened to have on hand.  I added a few fresh garlic cloves, some cumin, and some red chili powder.  I shredded it about 2 hours before we ate and busied myself making the pico de gallo and guacamole.  I also whipped up some cilantro, lime rice.

Not only was it lovely to eat, it was lovely to look at!  It wasn't quite the same as Cafe Rio but it was a good loose interpretation of the real thing and was very satisfying!

A Real Burger

One of our favorite meals is homemade burgers.  We've employed the "smash" technique to cook the burgers.  Shape the ground beef into a ball and throw it on the frying pan.  Let it brown and create a crust on the bottom side.  Flip after a few minutes and smash down with your spatula.  Delicious.

We threw sauteed mushrooms, red onions, homemade guacamole, cheese, and bacon on them.  We usually use some sort of ciabatta bread or something other than a plain hamburger bun.  I'm still looking for the perfect bun recipe.