What’s for Dinner Tonight?

Are you wondering what you’ll serve for dinner tonight?  Texas A&M AgriLife Extension is here to help!  Many people were introduced to “Dinner Tonight” during the 2014 Hopkins County Fall Festival.  Through live cooking demonstrations, Extension Family & Consumer Sciences agents from five counties showed how easy it is to prepare nutritious and tasty meals.

Texans turn to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service for solutions.  Our county Extension agents respond with answers, resources, and services to help people improve their quality of life.  One of these resources, meant to help families meet their healthy lifestyle goals, is “Dinner Tonight”.  This program encourages family mealtime by providing quick, nutritious, and cost-effective recipes to consumers through weekly video webcasts and other web-based methods, such as Facebook.

Here is a delicious recipe that was a big hit at Fall Festival.  Give it a try and let me know what you think:

Beef and Black Bean Chili

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, undrained
  • 1 cup medium hot salsa
  • 2 (8 ounce) cans ‘no salt added’ tomato sauce
  • 1 tablespoon chili seasoning mix
  • Shredded ‘reduced fat’ cheddar cheese (optional)
  • ‘low fat’ sour cream (optional)

1)      To prepare, cook meat in large saucepan over medium-high heat until browned, stirring until meat crumbles.  Drain.

2)      While meat cooks, mash one can of undrained beans.  Drain second can of beans.

3)      Add mashed beans,  undrained beans, salsa, tomato sauce and seasoning mix to meat.  Stir well.

4)      Cook chili over medium heat 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

5)      Serve hot and garnish with sour cream and cheese if desired.

Every Monday, we release a new video demonstration, featuring one of the county Extension agents from around the state.  We target busy people who still want to make time for meal preparation and feel good about what they are feeding themselves and their families.  Anyone can sign up for the weekly video by going to http://healthyliving.tamu.edu.  There you will find an archive of recipes and videos to meet your needs.  “Dinner Tonight” is also on Facebook at: Facebook.com/TXDinner.  Check it out!

If you missed the cooking demonstrations during Fall Festival, I have some good news!  Cookbooks are available for only $5 each.  The cookbooks contain fourteen complete menus, each containing a main dish, side dish (some menus include two side dishes), and a dessert.  Each menu has full-color photos of the main dish!  These cookbooks are available at the Hopkins County Extension Office, 1200B W. Houston Street, Sulphur Springs.  When you purchase a cookbook, your name will go into a drawing for  Kitchen Aid mixer ($400 value!) donated by Hooten’s Hardware in Emory.  The drawing will take place on Friday, November 14.  Now that’s a real bargain!

Christmas Joys Holiday Program

As you have probably read or heard by now, the 2014 AgriLife Extension “Christmas Joys” program is scheduled for Monday, November 10, at the Southwest Dairy Museum.  Both the 1:30 and 5:30 sessions are full and we have a waiting list for each.  If you have reserved a seat, please be sure to come!  If you cannot attend, we need to know so that those on the waiting list can be contacted.  If we continue to grow, we will consider adding a third session in the future, but for now, thanks for your interest in this program!

Closing Thought

Shared joy is joy doubled.  Shared sorrow is sorrow halved – German proverb

Johanna Hicks
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension
Family & Consumer Sciences
1200-B W. Houston
P.O.Box 518
Sulphur springs, TX 75483
903-885-3443 – phone
903-439-4909 – Fax
[email protected]

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