Family Meal Plan: Skillful Skillet Chocolate Chili + Zucchini Cornbread Muffins

Skillful Skillet Chocolate Chili

Happy & Healthy Cooking,

Fun-Da-Mentals Kitchen Skills

• chop :

  to cut something into small, rough pieces using a blade.

• crack :

  to break open or apart a food to get what's inside, like an egg or a coconut.

• grate :

  to reduce food, like a carrot, to very small shreds or pieces of the same size by rubbing it on a tool with an outside surface that has holes with cutting edges (a grater).

• knife skills :

  Bear Claw (growl), Pinch, Plank, and Bridge (look out for trolls). 

• measure :

  to calculate the specific amount of an ingredient required using a measuring tool (like measuring cups or spoons).

• mix :

  to thoroughly combine two or more ingredients until uniform in texture.

• separate eggs :

  to remove the egg yolk from the egg white by cracking an egg in the middle and using the shell halves, the palm of the hand, or a device to keep the egg yolk in place while the egg white falls into a separate bowl.

History of Chili!

• Chili, like apple pie, is an American icon. And although you may think it's Mexican, it isn't. Chili, as we know it, is not served in Mexico except in areas that cater to tourists. Instead, chili was invented in Texas! Several stories make up chili's history. 
• For example, one story is that chuck wagon cooks invented chili when traveling with cowboys on cattle drives in the Southwest. The story goes that, as they traveled in one direction, the cooks planted oregano, chiles, and onions among patches of mesquite to give them protection from extreme sun, foraging cattle, and other critters. Then, on their way back along the same trail, they would collect the spices, combine them with chopped beef and call it "Trail Stew" or "Trail Drive Chili." 
• According to What's Cooking America, the first recorded batch of "Chili con Carne" (chili with meat) in the US was made in 1731 by women who had emigrated from the Spanish Canary Islands. Historians called the dish "spicy Spanish stew."
• In the 1880s, a market in San Antonio, Texas began setting up chili stands from which chili, or Bowls o'Red as they called it, were sold by women known as "Chili Queens." 
• In 1967, the first chili cook-off happened in Terlingua, Texas, a border town about 400 miles west of chili's alleged birthplace, San Antonio. The cook-off ended in a tie between a native Texan and a New Yorker. They still hold chili cook-offs there today!

Let's Learn About Texas!

• Texas is in the south-central part of the United States. Its size is 268,596 square miles, the second-largest state in area after Alaska, and it is the second most populated state after California, with over 29 million people. 
• Austin is the capital city of Texas and is known for its music scene. However, Houston has the most people. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area is the largest in the state and the fourth largest in the country.
• Texas' nickname is "The Lone Star State," and "The Lone Star" is on its state flag and seal. Once belonging to Mexico, it became an independent republic in 1836. It joined the union in 1845 as the 28th state.
• The top industries in Texas are oil and petroleum, agriculture (including cattle and cotton), aeronautics, defense, technology, and tourism. Texas has more than 16 million heads of cattle, the most in the US.
• The Rio Grande River is the largest in Texas. It is 1,896 miles long, starting in south-central Colorado, then through New Mexico, running along the Texas and Mexico border, and then into Texas, where it eventually flows to the Gulf of Mexico.
• The phrase "Everything is bigger in Texas" was first used in 1913. Texas had been the biggest state until Alaska became part of the United States in 1959.
• Several dishes got their start in Texas, some with influences from Mexico, immigrants from other countries, or neighboring states. These include Tex-Mex cuisine, chili con carne, chicken fried steak, corn dogs, and Texas-style barbecued beef brisket.
• Pecan pie is the Texas state pie. Although historians are unsure whether pecan pie got its start in Texas or another southern state, we do know that archaeologists found evidence in Texas of indigenous people using pecans more than 8,000 years ago.