my afternoon in the kitchen

A couple days ago I somehow finally got the recipe for such specialties as the Cafe Rio house dressing and decided to follow through with a idea from like...I don't know, two years ago, to make our own Cafe Rio, but not really Cafe Rio, salads. Susie and I went shopping for the needed ingredients but somehow we never had the chance or the time to do it. So today, being a Sunday with lots of lounging time, I actually did it by myself. And it pretty fun. I've never declared myself someone who likes to cook--perhaps because a couple of my sisters are so dominant in that field--but it was pretty fun having the kitchen to myself, watching some episodes of Friends and just doing each of the steps needed. I may have invited some people over but I didn't really have much meat (just one small piece of chicken) since I was gooooing to try to make some Rio-esque pork and hadn't known what kind to buy when we first went to the store. But it ended up pretty well. My roommate had actually recently gone to Cafe Rio so when I was preparing the last things to get ready to enjoy the meal, she came home and was putting together her leftovers. She had some of the actual dressing left over and also used some of mine...and said mine was almost better...mwwhahahaaa....although, honestly, what do I have on Cafe Rio? I mean, seriously. I had to substitute for a few things that I didn't think was worth it to buy for the recipe and added a few other things when I thought it was a bit too cilantro-ish at first. (And I have a tooooon of this dressing now.) Anyways the adventure started out with cooking some brown rice (cuz it takes forever). I then made the dressing (during which I got to chop things like cilantro and garlic cloves) and cooked my lone piece of chicken. I cooked the black beans that Susie insisted we get. (I usually don't have beans on my salads and wasn't sure I'd choose black beans...but they were good, even if Susie wasn't there.) I also cut up a tomato and crumbled up some of the tortilla chips I have leftover from our awesome Mormonesta Fiesta--Va Style party last week. Oh, yes, and also browned my tortilla and topped it with melted cheese. Anyways, it was really good! YAY
Here's just the tortilla (with cheese) rice and black beans.
And the finished project!! Mmmhmm