Life on JARS #28: January 31, 2010

Rachel helms a weekend update of Life on Jars. She covers everything from Bionicles to banana flavored berium milk. Sam drops in for a Built by JARS and cousin Leah rocks the house with Battle Hymn of the Republic (a must see!), apologies for the cell phone video quality.

Cafe Rio Recipes

Several of you asked for the recipes I used to make Cafe Rio Pork Barbacoa Salads. So here they are. Cafe Rio is one of my favorite restaurants in Utah. I take no credit for these recipes--I stole them directly from other people's blogs! Enjoy!

Cafe Rio Pork Barbacoa

5-6 lb. pork roast (I used a smaller roast and cut the following ingredients in half)

21 oz. Dr. Pepper (or Coke, do NOT use diet soda)
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
7 oz. can chipotle chilies in adobo sauce ( I omitted this—too spicy for my liking)
6-ish oz. red taco sauce (I used mild)
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (I used black pepper)

Place roast in crock-pot, cover half-way with water and cook on low for 12 hours. (I started my Pork Adventure at midnight and everything worked out perfectly for Sunday dinner at 5:00 pm.) After 12 hours, drain pork.

Mix remaining ingredients until sugar dissolves. (I didn’t use the chipotle chilies, but if you do use them here are the directions from the blog I got this recipe from: “ I didn’t keep the actual chilies, I dumped the can into a bowl and added enough Dr. Pepper to get all the sauce off of the chilies, then I tossed them. I also rinsed out the can with Dr. Pepper for more adobo goodness. My version had a fairly good kick to it, but if you LOVE hotness, then blend everything + 2 or 3 chilies in the blender. (Also, the adobo sauce tends to stain plastic, using a glass or metal mixing bowl will make your clean-up of adobo sauce considerably less frustrating).)

Add Dr. Pepper mixture to the roast and cook on low an additional 4 hours.

Take out roast and shred, add back into sauce and cook for 2 more hours. At this point the meat was so tender it practically shredded itself.

Creamy Tomatillo Salad Dressing

1 packet hidden valley ranch buttermilk dressing
1 c. buttermilk
1 c. mayo or sour cream (I used sour cream—very delish)
2-3 tomatillas (peel off outer leaf/shell)
1 tsp. crushed garlic
¾ bunch fresh cilantro
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
juice from 1 lime (about 2 tsp.)
salt & pepper

Toss everything in a blender or food processor and you’re good to go!

Lime Cilantro Rice

2 Tbsp. oil
4 c. long grain rice (6 c. water)
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
juice of 2 limes
2 tsp. crushed garlic

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add rice, cilantro, and garlic. Saute 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add water and lime juice and bring to boil. Then reduce heat and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed by the rice (about 20 minutes). You can also use a rice cooker if you have one. (I cut this recipe in half—there are only 4 of us)

Easy Pico- de -Gallo

3 tomatoes, diced
1/2 bunch of cilantro, minced
1/2 sweet onion, minced
1 section of green pepper, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
about 1/3-1/2 cup white vinegar (use your best judgment)
salt and pepper

Mix it up really well and refrigerate. I put my pico in a Tupperware and shook it up really well right before serving to re-mix.

I put the following ingredients out on the bar and let people choose between a salad and a burrito:

• Tortilla – you can make your own, mine came from a package.
• Cheese –you can melt cheese onto your tortilla like they do at Café Rio
• Beans – black or pinto (mine came straight out of the can, warmed in the microwave with a little garlic powder and green Tabasco sauce).
• Rice
• Pork
• Lettuce – Shredded Romaine, you want small enough pieces to get a little of everything on your fork
• Pico de Gallo
• Tortilla Strips – slice a corn tortilla into strips, brush with olive oil and salt and pepper and bake on a foil-covered sheet for 15-20 minutes at 350-ish.
• Creamy Tomatillo Dressing

Last Post for 2009

It's time to say good-bye to 2009. It's been a good year with lots of changes and triumphs. Here are some photos from November and December.

Rachel enter the PTA Reflections competition again this year. The theme was "Beauty is...". Her painting of an orangutan entitled "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" went on to REGION this year! Rachel is very excited.













My parents celebrated their 40th Wedding Anniversary on December 13th. All 5 of us (my brothers, sisters and I) put together a little surprise celebration the day before Thanksgiving. We were all able to be there--which was great. My niece made these sashes for them that say "40th Partiers". Cute.









Jean spent the weekend knitting these awesome gloves!



















The Cousin's Table was THE place to be for Thanksgiving dinner...Thanks Carrie!












We celebrated Carrie's birthday the day after Thanksgiving at Brick Oven Pizza in Provo. YUM!

















This picture is only funny if your last name is Day...but I couldn't resist!















Decorating the tree...I think Sam must have had some bad memory about pre-school when he pulled out this ornament he made when he was 4! We've been getting real trees the past couple of years...and I don't know if I'll go back. The SMELL is my FAVORITE!











These little Christmas cherubs actually made the naughty list this year after they found all of their gifts under my bed! (They did redeem themselves, though.)

This year was a little bitter sweet...see those cute gingerbread people that hold treats for Santa? Well, they didn't get used this year for the first time ever. I now have a house full of non-believers--and my kids didn't even PRETEND to want to put treats out for Santa (sigh).





Sam was overcome with emotion when he met up with his beloved 1st/2nd Grade Teacher, Karen Steele. The former class had a little surprise holiday gathering for her downtown. Mrs. Steele will ALWAYS hold a special place in Sam's heart (and ours, too).
















Rachel received this hat in the mail from her BFF in Pennsylvania, Julia. She wore it for 2 days STRAIGHT!















We found that we were able to lure Dr. Stress-Pants away from his laptop with jigsaw puzzles. As soon as he finished this one (in 1 day), we bought him another one!











Our Christmas Eve traditions include having a grand Buffet--each person chooses two favorite things (no limitations). This year's buffet included: flank steak with mushrooms (aka Andy's Yule Log), mashed potatoes, spinach salad, chocolate dipped strawberries, pizza, root beer in a tall glass with ice, chicken pasta and crescent rolls. The rest of what you see here are some favorite holiday treats.













Another favorite Christmas Eve tradition is opening family gifts. In this photo Sam and Rachel are overcome with emotion upon opening Mario Kart. They were convinced that they had been seriously deprived up to this point because we didn't have it!









Isn't this disgusting?! We didn't have the energy to clean up as we opened things on Christmas morning. Perhaps the reason is that our Christmas cherubs got up at 4 (yes 4) to open their stockings. They weren't allowed to wake us up until 7. They came in at 6:00 and then at 6:59. By the time everything was opened, we went back to BED!

We've had a very lovely, relaxing time the past few days enjoying our gifts and each other (and yes, cleaning up the mess).

We are so very thankful to have each other and to be surrounded by so many loving friends and family members. We love you all! Merry Christmas and Happy 2010!

Life on Jars #27: December 20, 2009

We're baaaack. We discuss a 40th wedding anniversary, show pics of the Day family clan and review New Moon.

Annual MadLib 2009

It's our Walker family tradition. Who wants to read a plain old Holiday letter when you can co-author one about us? Okay, probably those of you who are writing your own, but think of this as semi-productive avoidance behavior. If you're looking to kill some time then fill out our Mad Lib! It includes some helpful directions for posting the results as a comment here in our blog (we love reading these). As a new edition this year you can also read the real letter.

Life on Jars #26: November 1, 2009

This v-cast is too sexy for your cat. Sam goes all nostalgic on us, Rachel discusses her online stalking of Johnny Depp and we didn't leave out the spoonerism of the week (which may need to be renamed. But bi-monthly spoonerism doesn't have the same ring).

Life on Jars #25: October 25, 2009

In this episode complete creative control was given to Rachel and Sam. (Apologies for the late post, had this up on FB, but forgot all about the family blog).