Hi! Sorry for the late response. T is for Tablespoon, and t is for Teaspoon. For my more recent recipes I have been writing out the full word to avoid confusion, but some of the older ones haven’t been updated yet. Sorry for the confusion!

Most Texans don’t really consider chili to be Tex-Mex, but rather, just Tex. Tex-Mex foods like enchiladas and tacos of course have actual Mexican counterparts. Chili does not. The closest thing to it in Mexico is Pozole, but that really is a different dish. The dish almost certainly originated in San Antonio or nearby. Yes, Hispanic Texans probably made it before Anglo Texans did, but it generally is considerably different from and is almost never served with true Tex-Mex foods. And unlike Tex-Mex, it spread far and wide across the U.S. by the early 20th century, becoming claimed as a local dish by such places as Cincinnati and Kansas City, though their versions are more like what is served some places as chili bean soup. In fact, they might be more like yours than a true Texas chili is, if yours had kidney beans (an abomination to a chili head).

Hot dogs or smoked sausage in chili? Pretty strange.

But, you definitely put up some good recipes for some other things.