Well as the season change, we all try different types of food and experiment with new flavors don’t we? We try to change things for the better in any way possible.

Of course, preparing foods for friends and family members make the days even more valuable when you to think of it.

And that’s why we like to celebrate together with the ones we care about with festivities that we seem fit. Yes we take precious time to present our food with much love and laughter while everyone else will indulge with reserved curiosity.

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is make your food stand out with the right look, taste, and combinations. You should experiment by changing around the ingredients in your recipes to your liking.

Your cooking signature should be everywhere and on everything you prepare. In time, your worth will be acknowledged…through cooking.

You can garnish your dishes with some off-the-shelf spices, and decorate your tables with bottles of sauces. Change everything… as the season change.

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You know that Jamaica is known for Jerk chicken, right? Well we have some of the best tasting beef dishes around too. Oh Yes! And as promised in the first e-zine, here is the Stew Beef recipe that will knock your socks off. This one is from my lovely wife, Mavis.

Jamaica Stew Beef

2 lbs. Beef (cut up in bite size)

4 sprig. Thyme

1 Medium Onion (chopped)

1 tsp. Salt

2 oz. Cooking Oil

1 Tomato (chopped)

1 tsp. Black Pepper

2 oz Soy Sauce

¼ tsp. Brown Sugar 1 clove Garlic

1 oz. Vinegar

Water

2 oz. Tomato Ketchup

1 Irish Potato (cut into 8 pieces)

1 Carrot (sliced lengthwise into 4 pieces)

Method:

Wash beef in cold water and vinegar for about 1 minute. Then add all ingredients together with meat in a cooking bowl, except cooking oil, potato, carrot, and ketchup. Rub in seasonings for about another 2 minutes or so.

Now remove the seasonings from the beef using a fork. Leave the seasonings in the same cooking bowl that you originally had the meat in. You will have a little soy sauce left in the bowl too.

Heat the cooking oil on high in a skillet until the oil is hot. Turn down the fire to medium. Add the meat to the oil, a couple pieces at a time. You are going to brown the meat at this point.

When you add all the meat to the skillet, use a fork to turn over the pieces when they are * brown.* Not burnt.

Add about 4oz. of water to the beef and allow the meat to cook until it’s tender. You will have to repeat this process several times before this happens because the water will evaporate.

When the meat is tender add all the other ingredients with about 6 oz. water to the skillet.

Cover the skillet and reduce the heat a little bit, and let this stew cook for another 12 minutes.

YAH MON!!!

*********************************************************** JAMAICA COOKING TIPS *********************************************************** Have you ever had a tasty piece of fish well seasoned and thoroughly cooked, but for some reason there is this bland aftertaste and you can’t figure out why? Well, this is caused by two things, one is, the fish was frozen when the cooking process started, and two the fish was not marinated enough.

Here is a tip, soak the fish in a salt and water solution for half an hour. This will penetrate the fish flesh and get rid of the bland aftertaste when you cook the fish.

You can add a little vinegar or lemon juice to the salt and water solution, if you like, to remove the rawness from the fish.

YAH MON!!!