A Basketball Fiesta Celebration

 This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #DelimexFiesta #CollectiveBias

Last month I talked about creating themed dinners at least once a month, and how I wanted to use it as a tool, not only to celebrate more with the family, but also to use it as a way to teach the kids about different things – like cultures, traditions, sports, art, activities, -and history.

Wayne and I enjoy watching basketball, and with a lot of big basketball events happening I knew I wanted to celebrate one evening while watching a game, and I decided we would have a DIY chili bar because we hadn't done something like that in a while and it sounded delicious!

I also picked up some Delimex® Beef and Chicken Taquitos as well as some Beef Tamales – right now there’s a coupon for $1 off on any TWO(2) Delimex® Frozen Taquito products (Excluding Fruit Taquito Products) at Walmart that you can print which is available through April 7^th!(Coupon expires on May 4th). Thus, my basketball themed chili night became a fiesta.

I bought some strawberries and melted some white chocolate and colored it orange, then dipped the strawberries and topped them with dark chocolate drizzle – and created little basketballs. The kids’ love chocolate covered strawberries (okay, myself included!) so it was a perfect finger food and treat.

You can’t have chili without cornbread, so I made mini cornbread bites by using a mini muffin pan. I then used my wood burning tool to toast lines on some of them to represent basketballs.

There were a variety of cheeses, sour cream, fresh salsa, green onions, olives, and tortilla chips so everyone could top their chili with their favorite toppings and the kids also loved being able to ‘snack’ on the taquitos and tamales before and after their meal.  

 The kids’ actually made the little festive decorations that I used on the table. Last month they spent an afternoon painting all of these little wooden coasters that I had purchased back around Christmas time and hadn't figured out what do to with. After they had painted them I still wasn't sure what to do with them all and I just happened to glance at the stack of them while I was setting the food out and voila! Colorful coasters to brighten up the fiesta.

 I had also bought some frozen mango's last month and decided that I would finally use them and made some smoothies as well. I blended them with some strawberries, orange cream ice cream, ice, and let the family fight for the fruity drinks.

 As we sat and watched the game I thought of how old I was when I first began liking basketball. In high school I never knew the rules and / or how to play (I had been in a small private school my entire life prior to high school). Not knowing how to play it was too hard for me to make the team and figure out the game, so I spent as the official-unofficial videographer for the girls’ basketball teams, traveling with them and recording the games for the coach. I began learning rules and fell fond of the sport.

Here I am now, nearly 15 years later, watching games with my family, and photographing our memories with you.

It’s funny how things like Delimex taquitos and basketball games bring families together, spark old memories, and create new ones. 

~Melissa