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Family dinner is our time I guard like a momma bear.  If you don’t have a regular family dinner, I highly recommend you start a family dinner time even if you start off with just twice a week. The Family Dinner Project states,

Over the past 15 years, research has shown what parents have known for a long time: Sharing a fun family meal is good for the spirit, brain and health of all family members. Recent studies link regular family meals with the kinds of behaviors that parents want for their children: higher grade-point averages, resilience and self-esteem. Additionally, family meals are linked to lower rates of substance abuse, teen pregnancy, eating disorders and depression. We also believe in the power of family dinners to nourish ethical thinking.

I can totally attest to that statistic! Growing up “la cena” is what we called dinner and it was a time mi mama had for us, even if it meant that sometimes my father didn’t join us because of his late work nights.  My mother was very intentional about our cena time. If my mom was out, she always got home in time to get dinner on the table, so we could all be together with out the television on. If my father couldn’t join us for dinner then when he got home we would accompany him at the table.  We discussed our day at the table. We debated our thoughts at the table. My parents instilled their faith and values at the table. We also had one too many arguments at the table but that’s life full of problem solving so it’s better to have a safe place to learn how to do that–around the family table.  I never thought twice about how we did things, it was just what we did and several neighbor kids who didn’t have this, always accompanied us for dinner.  They longed to have family time, a warm meal and togetherness.

Well, now that I’ve convinced you to start a family meal time, I’m going to share with you a fun and EASY Family dinner night: Chili Bar and my famous Chipotle Chili.  I love all things “themed” meals though your family meal time doesn’t have to have anything themed to make it impactful on your children.  I like waffle bars, pancake bars, pizza bars, sandwich bars and just last Friday we had a French Bread pizza bar.  Adding the word “bar” to our dinner meals makes it more fun for the kids and they love coming up with their own toppings.

With the big football game around the corner this is also a great simple way to turn a normal football viewing night into fun. And if you’re not into watching the game well just have a fun family night with this chili bar!

This Chipotle chili recipe using El Yucateco Hot Sauce is so versatile because you can just eat it in a bowl, serve it up with nacho chips, eat it with hotdogs and well the possibilities are endlessly delicious! I consider myself a hot sauce snob and I assure you the Chipotle flavored hot sauce takes your chili to another level! We paired our meal with ice cold Coca-Cola drink in these fun football cups I made. I just cut a brown piece of colored paper and wrapped it around the cup and added the white lines so it can look like a football. Easy enough right!

Family Dinner Night: Chili Bar

How to put together a Chili Bar?

1. Your favorite chili! Checkout below my favorite chipotle chili recipe.

2. Set up your hotdogs in a way that’s easy to grab and go. You can even use turkey franks if you don’t like the traditional hot dogs.

3. Toppings Bar! This part is what makes it so much fun for my kids. They get to pick and choose what they want on top of their meal.

5. Set it all up on your table and let the yumminess begin!

My favorite recipe for our Chili Bar–Chipotle Chili!  You can just eat your the chili as is and add more hot sauce to your liking if your family doesn’t like it that hot or serve it up with your hot dogs.

Chipotle Chili

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef or turkey, browned
• 2 tablespoon of El Yucateco Chipotle flavored Hot Sauce or your favorite flavor
• 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 can red kidney beans, drained & rinsed (optional–I like mine without beans)
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon of chili powder
• salt to taste

1. Place all of the above in a pot and cook for 20 minutes on medium-low heat. Serve warm.

Enjoy!

Also, right now if you purchase (2) Coca-Cola 1.25 Liter products + (2) El Yucateco Hot Sauce products you can get $2.00 off your deli/meat order at your local Fiesta store (where ours was purchased!).

Stop by El Yucateco’s Facebook page and checkout some great recipes!