In class cooking: chili and hot chocolate

Mrs. D's Chili

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef, crumbled and fried
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
8 mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 can pasta sauce
1-2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can dark red kidney beans (sometimes I add a can of white kidney beans as well)
2-3 tsp chili powder (start with 2, add another if needed)
salt and pepper to taste
pinch cayenne pepper (to make the chili more spicy)

Directions:
1.  Fry the ground beef in a frying pan until browned (no pink showing any more)
2.  Add the onion and green pepper and continue frying until both the onion and green pepper are softened.
3.  Drain and rinse the can of kidney beans
4.  Put all ingredients into a large pot and bring to a boil.  Stir often.  Turn down the heat to minimum and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring every 5-10 minutes.  The longer the ingredients simmer the more flavourful the chili.

Mexican Hot Chocolate
Recipe courtesy The Food Network

Ingredients
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 C milk
2 tbsp sugar
pinch salt

miniature marshmallows, for serving

Directions:
Using a sharp knife, break up the chocolate into smaller pieces.  In a saucepan, combine the chopped chocolate, milk, sugar and salt over medium-low flame.  Heat and stir until the chocolate is completely melted and milk is very hot, but not boiling, about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and froth the chocolate milk with a mini whisk.

In class cooking: Salsa-licious

The thing about salsa... Fresh salsa recipes are easily modified.  There are no rules as to how much of a certain ingredient you need to put in, but there are guidelines.  Start with the recipe below, and before you begin ask your group the following questions: how spicy do you want your salsa to be? how much garlic do you want to put in?   do you want big chunks in your salsa or small pieces? Cilantro: smell it.  Do you think you will want a large or small amount of this herb? Remember: It is easy to add MORE to a recipe, but very very difficult to remove a certain ingredient.  Start small and add more to taste.

Fresh salsa recipe:

3 large tomatoes
½ chopped onion
1or 2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ c finely chopped cilantro
1 tbsp lime juice
½  jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
salt to taste

1.  chop tomatoes, place in bowl.
2.  After discussing questions above, measure and chop other ingredients.  
3.  Mix all ingredients together

Home-made Pita Chips:
2 whole pitas
1 tsp olive oil
tyme
garlic salt

1.  put the olive oil in a small bowl.
2.  Use your brush to lightly kiss the pita with olive oil, on one side
3.  lightly sprinkle the thyme and garlic salt on the pita
4.  cut the pita into wedges
5.  spread the wedges on a cookie sheet
6.  bake in the oven for approximately 8-10 minutes