Honduras Unit

I was looking through pictures online to see what I could find for a great picture for this post. I wanted to find something that would say, “This is Honduras.” I scrolled and scrolled and finally found the Macaws, I don’t know why it just screamed, hello, here is Honduras, but it did. I now add our Honduras to our geography lessons and our North America Unit. I always try to shove Honduras slightly more South than it is, and think of it as South America.

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Honduras Unit resources

Let’s see what I can I dig up about Honduras.

• National Geographic Kids Honduras
• 10 Facts about Honduras– the facts aren’t particularly useful, but it has some great pictures
• CIA Honduras– I pretty much only link this because I find the idea of getting the country facts from the CIA hilarious
• 70 facts about Honduras– some fun facts in there, and a few good pictures

So, I had found an archeology site that supposedly had Honduras facts, but it was actually linking to a PDF, and it was just weird. So I didn’t end up linking to it.

This is right before Barb started expanding the episode length. So, you can stuff quite a lot of information into 10 minutes of videos.

Honduras Unit recipe: Baleadas

Really, all of the Central and South American cultures are just an excuse for me to try and butcher some of my favorite recipes and attempt to make food I really enjoy eating. It never comes out as good as it should, but I sure do happily try.

Also, this recipe is essentially my boys’ ideal meal when they were in elementary school.

Baleadas ingredients

• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1-1 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 butter softened

For the filling:

• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 cups refried black beans
• 1/2 cup fresh grated Queso Fresco (this cheese is amazing in Hispanic food)

Making Baleadas

Get a tortilla press, it has so many uses beyond just tortillas, but I love them, they are amazing, buy one.

Okay now to actually making the recipe.

1. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. Mix in 1/2 cup of milk. Then slowly mix in the fat until the dough comes together. If needed add a little extra milk.
3. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes until smooth and soft.
4. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.
5. While the dough is resting, mix together the 1/4 cup sour cream and 1/4 of milk to form a cream mixture. As I was doing this I was wondering, couldn’t you just use heavy whipping cream, but I guess the taste of sour cream is slightly different from whipping cream.
6. Heat the refried black beans, and makes sure the Queso Fresco is shredded.
7. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Divide the tortilla dough into eight pieces and use the tortilla press to roll them out.
8. Cook the tortillas about one minute a side, then spread the black beans on the tortilla, sprinkle some queso fresco, and pour a little bit of the cream mixture, then fold the tortilla in half.
9. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Honduras Baleadas

Print

This simple recipe makes a filling and delicious meal.

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1-1 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 butter
• For the Baleadas
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 cups refried black beans
• 1/2 cup fresh grated Fresco Cheese

Instructions

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. Mix in 1/2 cup of milk.
3. Slowly work in the butter, and if needed add more milk a little at a time as needed to make the dough workable.
4. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth, but not sticky.
5. Cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes.
6. While the dough is resting, combine the milk and sour cream together slowly until the cream is pourable.
7. Warm the refried black beans, and set aside.
8. Cut the dough into 8 equal portions, then using a tortilla press, form the tortillas.
9. Cook the tortillas on a dry skillet and cook for about 1 minute on each side.
10. On the cooked tortilla, spread the refried black beans, and sprinkle the queso fresco, and pour a little of the cream mixture. Fold the tortilla in half, then serve.

Honduras Unit notebooking pages

We grabbed our handy dandy North America notebook and happily filled out the pages with my kids providing amusing commentary.

Let’s see what fun facts did I write down?

• it has the second most dangerous airport in the world because the runway ends in a cliff, which really begs the question, what is the most dangerous airport?
• an underwater museum
• lost city of monkey god
• there are glowing skulls
• there’s a place where it rains fish once a year

Oh, and good animals for a mini animal report.

• giant anteater
• baird’s tapir
• green sea turtle
• ocelot
• Mexican spider monkey
• white-nosed coati
• macaw
• slaty-tailed trigon

I had to put in a separate search for birds, since I knew there were a bunch of tropical birds because my initial search got me, birds. That’s right Honduras has birds, they are famous for birds.

More great learning fun

• Seashell sort lesson
• Brazil Unit
• Homemade clock math lesson
• Horseshoe crab lesson
• Maryland Unit

Matthew Romack, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons