As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm a lazy cook. Sure, I can follow a recipe, but it doesn't REALLY excite me to buy special items, do all the prep, cook, eat, and clean up – especially if I have no idea if it will turn out. Since the recipes I've tried so far from the Rocco cookbook turned out so good, I've decided to try at least 1 new recipe every 2 weeks. I'll aim for one per week, but let's not get carried away!
This week, I tried 3 recipes from Gina's Skinny Recipes to make 1 meal: Chipotle- inspired cilantro rice, quick cuban style black beans, and sweet barbacoa pork. I decided to make this because hubs and I are big fans of Chipotle, but I haven't been able to eat it in a long time due to my inability to control my portions.
This was a little ambitious for one of my first blogging-cooking endeavors. It required marinating the meat overnight, cooking it, removing to shred, then cook in new stuff. I'm not good at planning, so I must say I was thankful I remembered to marinate the pork last night.
Here is the pork. It tasted SO FLAVORFUL, despite appearances:
And here are the black beans. I think I added a little too much water, but again SO full of flavor:
This is the rice. It blew hubs' mind because he said it tasted just like Chipotle. I don't really remember exactly how Chipotle rice tastes, but this was really, really good.
Put it all together and this is what you get:
Here's the verdict:
- Prep time: Meh. Marinating plus dealing making 3 different new recipes made this a little more involved than I'd normally like
- Dirty dish factor: Medium. Slow cooker, rice pot, bean pot, chopping knife, cutting board
- Taste test: AMAZING. Seriously, so damn good. Hubs loved it as well. He ate his in a tortilla with cheese
- Overall: I WILL for sure make this again, but it's definitely a weekend-only meal because of the time involved.
