It's Finally Here!!!

Chipotle has finally opened it's doors in Columbia,SC! You know we were there to get in all the action!

We have been waiting a looong time for this day! Chipotle opened up here officially on January 15th. They did however, have a sneak peek on the 13th. JP and a co-worker went to the sneak peek, and quickly left! There were so many people there it was just crazy! I'm sure it had something to do with FREE burritos! LOL We did manage to make it out the official grand opening (family in tow). They were giving away t-shirts and cards for free burritos to the first 100 people. Our friend Kris was actually the first one there. He saved a spot for us too! :)

Here we are waiting in line for our t-shirt and burritos! Don't the kids look excited??? Ha!


The t-shirt give away started at 3, and this it what the line looked like as time got closer.

We made it in! Burrito time!

Our free shirt and gift card. They made the t-shirt look like a burrito! Cute!

JP Enjoying his burrito!

Arial shot of our favorite burrito the Barbacoa!


Me enjoying my burrito. Check out our friend Kris in the background! LOL

All Pau! It was well worth it! We stood in line for about an hour. I'm sure glad they finally came to our town. We were driving an hour away to get our fix! Moes better watch out! Moes also had the nerve to try and give away free burritos on Chipotle's grand opening! How dare they! lol Other friends of ours went to the new Chipotle a couple days after the grand opening and said there were still long lines! Sounds like they are off to a good start! Good times! :)

~JP and Feather

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Oh Yes, It's Burrito Night!

Burrito night has come again! Woo hoo! It's burrito time! It's our second burrito night. I could say 2nd annual Burrito night, because the last one was probably a year ago.

What's great about this burrito night, is that we used leftover food from the night before. Leftover Prime Rib and extra Pork we had from the Tamales. Our neighbor Chris came over to enjoy the feast. It was a great meal! Everyone was stuffed, we even had breakfast burritos the next day! LOL

So let's take a look at the menu...





The picture doesn't do it justice, but this is the leftover Prime Rib. We fried it in a pan with a bit of Olive Oil, Cumin, and Carne Asada Seasoning.


Some sauteed boneless chicken fried in a pan with Olive Oil, Cumin, Chili Powder, Black Pepper, Carne Asada Seasoning, Fresh Garlic, onion, and tiny bit of Salt.



These are Pork Tamales. These are the best Tamales ever! Yum yum! My Mom made these.

Black Beans. These were simmering in a pot with onion, cumin, black pepper, garlic salt, and a squeeze of lime.


Mexican Rice. This was Long Grain Rice, that was browned with a bit of oil and onion. Cumin, Beef Bouillon, Tomato Sauce, and some other seasonings. Simmered to perfection.



My famous guacamole. It doesn't look so famous right here. Sorry bad lighting. But, it was still tasty!


These were killer too! Fresh refried pinto beans. They were boiled. Then fried with bacon fat and other seasonings. I can't say enough how much I loved these!


This was the leftover pork from the Tamales. This was already seasoned with chili's and spices. I fried it in a pan with a tiny bit of Cumin and Carne Asada Season.

This is fresh Salsa my Moms made. It has diced onion, tomatoes, cilantro, pickled carrots and jalapenos. Spicy!


Here's a closer look at some of the dishes. This was the Mexican rice. It was very flavorful.


Pork Tamale with a dash of Mrs. Renfros Green Salsa!



Pork Tamale with Guacamole and Cheese on top. This was freaking onolicious!

Chicken Burrito with all the fixings.


Here is JP's "Prime-Ritto" lol He gave it that name.



And of course a little Cerveza to accompany the festivities! We also had Jarritos Mexican sodas, that Chris brought. I love the Tamarind flavor.




Burrito night was a hit! Hopefully we'll have a third. Burritos were enjoyed by all. Thanks to my Mom who has now gone back home, helped make our 2nd Burrito Night a success!

~Feather


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Salsarita's Fresh Cantina

Over this past weekend JP and I had the opportunity to have some much needed time away. We felt it was a good time to go and try out some food spots we've been meaning to get to in the past few months. On the agenda, Salsarita's Cantina!

Unfortunately I left the camera in the car, so we didn't get any shots of our meal. JP and I, always love a good dose of Mexican cuisine. This place has come highly recommended by a few of our friends. We were out and about cruising the town, and decided to stop in. Before we arrived, JP checked with a friend for some suggestions on what we should order. We were told the Beef Burritos and Taco Salad were good choices.

Salsarita's is located at 5135 Sunset Blvd Suite H Lexington, SC 29072. Right in the shopping plaza were Target is. Walking into Salsarita's isn't like the hip and ultra modern Chipotle. It has a more rustic appeal to it. The place was packed, but there was plenty of seating. Glancing over the menu, they offer Tacos, Taco Salads, Burritos, Quesadillas, Nachos, Salads, Enchiladas, and even pizzas! We were told for the burritos we could just pick a tortilla size and then start choosing our ingredients. There are two sizes for the burrito regular and large. Regular is a normal sized burrito and large is just ridiculous! LOL We chose the regular because we wanted dessert afterward. We chose the shredded beef burrito. We filled our burritos with shredded beef,rice, black beans, hot salsa, cheese, flavored sour cream (not sure what is was flavored with), and gauc. We also ordered a side of chips and warm queso. The price was pretty reasonable with the addition of drinks. Speaking of drinks, they also offer Margaritas and Non-Alcoholic Margaritas.

Okay so here is the moment of truth. We got our goods, it's tasting time! The chips and queso were pretty tasty. Tasted like most of the chips and queso we've had at other places. So moving on to the burrito. My first bite seemed okay. I thought it tasted pretty good. I think JP felt otherwise about his. As I got deeper into mine, I noticed that the beef was extremely salty. JP and I both agreed it was very salty! We both had to throw on extra dashes of hot sauce to make it through. LOL If it weren't for the over saltiness I would have given the burrito a decent rating. Because it was so salty I can only give it a 5.5. JP gave it a flat 5.0. Overall the meal was just okay for us. I think we need to come again and try something else before we can really say we either love or hate the place. I will say we did like it better than Moe's!

~Feather

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Hey Hey

So I've been under the weather the last week. Which means, I haven't been doing much cooking. Sunday I had to do some serious improvising! LOL I made my own homemade Hamburger Helper. Well, not hamburger...more like ground Turkey Helper. Ha ha! It actually tasted very much like Helper. The kids loved it! I shall post the recipe for that. Today, I did shredded chicken burritos. I seasoned the chicken myself instead of using the premade package taco seasoning. I also fried some flour tortillas for the kids, so they can have chicken tacos. I felt like I haven't cooked in ages! I made my famous gauc, black beans and rice. I'm going to try and cook some more things this week. I feel like I never have enough time to really cook anything good.

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Turkey Helper
1 package ground Turkey
1 box mac n cheese (any brand)
1 cup cheddar cheese and mozerella cheese (add more if you ilke I used cubed cheese)
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
salt to taste
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic salt
dash of Tony Chachere's

Brown turkey in pan and add in about half of the seasonings. I really do this buy eye, and just dash a good helping all over it. I did thi in a non stick pan, so Ididn't add in any oil or butter. Cook Macaroni according to box. When done drain and add to turkey. Add the rest of the ingredients on the Macaroni box. Add in the rest of seasonings and cheese. Mix well and simmer on low for a few minutes. That's it your done. I made some Garlic Parmesan Bread to go on the side with some veggies. Everybody seemed to like it!

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Shredded Chicken For Burritos or Tacos
4-5 pieces of cooked chicken
1/3 cup jalepenos (chopped)
1/4 cup onions(chopped)
3 garlic cloves (minced)
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
couple dashes of black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 dash of Carne Asada Seasoning
1 teaspoon dried cilantro (you could use fresh, probably should use less if you do)
1 teaspoon dried chives

Shred chicken. I just use my hands. Place all ingredients in a pan on medium heat. Saute to get everything well mixed. Simmer on medium low for about 20 minutes. You can adjust the seasoning to your taste. I like stuff spicy, so I like to throw in extra cayenne and peppers. You can use this for burritos or tacos.

So, that's all I have for today.

~Feather
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Chipotle Mexican Grill of Charlotte, NC

Side-view of yumminess

I'm trying to think of a way to put this so it doesn't seem that we drove all the way from Columbia, SC to Charlotte, NC just to get burritos. I could say how we have some friends or relatives that live there and we just happened to stumble upon a Chipotle. I could say that there was an important bloggy blog seminar there but neither would be true. As pathetic as it seems, we drove to an hour and a half to 2109 South Blvd in Charlotte to give our tongue and its taste buds a "full body flavor massage".


Chipotle's food does not taste like something that you'd expect from a company originally owned by McDonalds. The food always tastes like it was just prepared. Even the gauc doesn't get a chance to turn brown. This means that either people are eating the gauc that fast or that they retire the gauc after it sits for a while. There are 5 kinds of burritos that you can order: Chicken, Pork, Barbacoa, Steak, and Vegetarian. Our favorite is the Barbacoa shredded beef. If you get a burrito, the rice has cilantro in it, you have a choice of 3 kinds of cheeses, refried beans or black beans, and a bunch of other things to stuff it with. The tortilla that they prepare it on seems to be a specially made oversized one which brings me to the next point: It's BIG.

Samsung SCH-i730 placed for scale. (Actually, my phone is hugging the burrito because portable consumer electronics love Chipotle too)

We usually know ahead of time when we're going to Chipotle, so we eat light(if at all) before going. These things are hard to put down. Just look at this picture of our fellow burrito analysts, Kris here:

Kris ate it so fast the camera shutter couldn't get a clear pic of his burrito hand. pyooooo!

It's one thing to talk yourself and your wife into driving this far for a burrito, but it's even better when you can talk a buddy, his wife, and kids into going too! Thanks to Kris, Jennifer, Lisa, Melanie for hitting the highway with us. It's a shame that we don't have any Chipotles here. If you ever see one of these restaurants, check them out. You won't regret it.

The judges say:

"Bangin!"

"Banged!"

-JP

Feather's Commentary: I will also add that the addiction to Chipotle burritos goes as far as me asking JP to fly me a burrito aaaallll the way from San Antonio Texas! LOL He had to get through security just to bring me a burrito! I might add he brought all the works to go with it too! I tore them thangs up! But yeah...we love Chipotle burritos, they are our obesession!

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Recipe of The Day: Prince Burritos

Our all time obsession, burritos! There are so many different ways we make these. I just want to share a quick and easy recipe we enjoy. Very simple, and it can be modified to your liking.


Ground Beef Burritos

Prep Time:20-30 minutes
Cook Time:30-35 minutes
Servings: Feeds a family of four


You will need:
Ground Beef (if you don't like ground beef you can use whatever meat you like)
Shredded Fiesta Mix Cheese
Mrs. Renfros
2 Avocados
Half a medium tomato
1 onion
1 lime
1 packet Taco Bell Chipotle Season
1 pack Large Tortillas
Sour Cream
Rice
Black Beans
Cumin
Salt, Pepper and Garlic Salt

Ingredients:

Meat filling:
1lb ground beef
1 onion
1 package Taco Bell Chipotle Taco Season

Chop onion. Brown ground beef and onion in saute pan. Follow directions on season packet. Place meat to the side, once done cooking. I like to place it into a bowl.

Black Beans:
1 can Goya Black Beans
1/4 cup onion
1 half of lime
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients in pot and let simmer until beans are nice and tender. I usually start them off on medium heat and then finish off on low.

Home Made Guacamole:
2 Ripe avocados
half of medium tomato
1 lime
1/4 cup finely chopped onion (or whatever you like)
garlic salt, salt and pepper

Mash avocado...to where it's still has a good chunky consistency. Chop tomato and onion. Mix in with avocado. Squeeze lime juice over mixture. Add in garlic salt, salt and pepper. Mix well and refrigerate until ready for use.


Prepare any type of rice. We use plain white rice. Yellow rice tastes good too!

Warm tortillas shells. Place a good helping of the ground beef mixture on your tortilla. Then place in some black beans. Add your rice. A dollop of sour cream and guacamole. A good helping of cheese. Mrs. Renfros to top it off. Wrap. Your ready to eat!

Look at 'em. They love it. (Burrito Night July 2007)

For reference here is a picture of Mrs. Renfros. We can only find it at Publix here in South Carolina. In Texas, where this picture was taken. We found it in a regular old grocery store. Good stuff if you can find it. Make sure you get the green one!


And on a funny note....I usually pack JP's lunch with leftovers from the night before. I made burritos, and I usually add in extra so he can share. For some reason when I packed his lunch I put everything in zip lock bags. LOL He's like, "How am I supposed to heat this up...get the stuff out?" Ooops! Maybe I should of threw in some containers or some plates. I guess it wasn't really convenient. :)
Hope you enjoy the burritos as much as we do! Read more!