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Family dinners for the New Year

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chili

You can't go wrong with a big pot of winter chili, like this steak version, or the Congressional Chili from Peace Meals. (Photo: istock.com/Lauri Patterson)

Cooking Buzz is produced in partnership with the Junior League of Houston, a women’s charitable and education organization founded in 1925.

In the hectic and fast-paced lives we lead, dinners provide a space for families to slow down and regroup at the end of a busy day. It’s a time to sit down at the table, disconnect from cell phones and electronics, and enjoy each other’s company, sharing, listening and reconnecting over a homemade meal. What better time to resolve to make family dinners a priority than the New Year as you settle back into a routine.

The Junior League of Houston’s Peace Meals is the first cookbook I pull out when putting together a family dinner menu. A big pot of chili is a favorite “go to” meal on a cold day in January. Congressional Chili is a hearty dish that makes an easy, all-in-one-course, winter meal that is just as good for leftovers as it is right out of the pot. The ingredient that makes this chili recipe special is the red mole, a sauce first created around 1680 in Puebla, Mexico. Serve it with a crusty loaf of French bread or flaky Jalapeño Cheese Biscuits, and your family will be asking for seconds, and possibly thirds. The secret to flaky biscuits is to use very cold butter (try 20 minutes in the freezer.)

Family dinner would not be complete without dessert, and in our house that is usually pie. The art of making piecrusts from scratch was something I learned from my mother. To this day, I can picture her wiping her hands on her red and white apron, flour lightly dusting her cheek, which she had unknowingly brushed with her floury hand. It’s a skill I hope to pass down to my daughter. For your next family dinner, consider serving up a warm slice of Apple Walnut Pie. It will literally melt in your mouth and is a dessert that will be everyone’s special request for future family dinners. The recipe comes from another Junior League cookbook, Stop and Smell the Rosemary.

Round out the night with cocoa for the kids and a fresh pot of coffee for the grownups. Or for a warm minty treat to top off a winter’s evening, try Peace Meals’ Holiday Coffee, with peppermint schnapps.

If your life has gotten so busy that regular family dinners have fallen by the wayside, consider making a commitment to yourself and your family to make them a priority to kick off 2016.

Editor’s note: A sustaining member of the Junior League of Houston, writer Mary Beth Staine is executive director of Bo’s Place, a local bereavement center where League volunteers provide a compassionate environment for bereaved families to share a pot-luck dinner before their grief-support groups. To buy a cookbook, see www.jlh.org or call

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