Creamy Mediterranean Spicy Beef Recipe

Ingredients:

2 ½ tbsp of olive oil

2 tbsp of McCormick® coriander powder

McCormick® marjoram

McCormick® dried oregano

Black pepper

2 sliced tomatoes (seeds removed)

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 onion finely chopped

2 whole jalapeños

1 can of sliced button mushrooms

½ kg foreshank beef, thinly sliced

250ml of cream

Salt to taste

How to cook:

In a bowl, sprinkle salt, marjoram, black pepper and dried oregano on the thinly sliced beef and mix them well. Set aside. In a skillet, sauté garlic in olive oil until golden brown and add the chopped onion. Next, add the tomatoes. Add the mushrooms. Add the coriander powder, a sprinkle of marjoram, a bit of salt, black pepper and oregano. Mix them well. Next, add the beef to the skillet mixture. Stir all the ingredients in the heated skillet until the herbs and spices are evenly distributed on the beef. Put a lid on the skillet and let the beef’s water come out. Let it boil, slowly. Stir it from time to time until the water evaporates. When there’s little water left, add the cream. Lower the heat and stir until the sauce is thick. Good for 7 servings.


(For more of my recipes, go to: http://mealsonlinerecipes.blogspot.com)

Art in Packaging: Enticing the Eyes and the Mind

Photo by Carmel Vilchez

I’m just thinking… a product’s packaging really does wonders. I remember when my Mom went to Singapore and bought some chocolates for us. She bought many, believe me. When we saw the packaging of each brand, in their interesting wrappers, my younger sister and I decided to take pictures of them at the rooftop, of our building, where the lighting is best (I am a food photography enthusiast, so I try to keep my camera handy when I see delicious and interesting foods). One of the products was wrapped like gold bars and the other product was shaped like merlions while yet another product had rounded chocolates wrapped in gold-colored paper. We decided to mix them all together and arrange them in interesting ways, so that when a person sees our photos they will say, to themselves, “Ah, I want to have some of those!” After our photo shoot we went back downstairs to finally taste each product. To our huge disappointment, the chocolates didn’t even taste like chocolate! They all tasted like sugar in some kind of bland mixture, except for the rounded chocolates. At least they had an outer wafer, covering the chocolate inside that’s mixed with more tiny bits of wafers. We gave most of them away to our friends. We just wanted to get rid of them because we didn’t like the taste or the texture. What’s the lesson in the story? Don’t buy foods based upon their expensive packaging. Looks can be deceiving and as they say, “You can’t tell a book by looking at its cover”. It’s no wonder that so many food producers invest so much money in their design and presentation. The packaging look luxurious while the chocolate itself tasted bland but I must say kudos to the artist behind them.