Beef Caldereta

First of all, I have to say that I am a picky eater and my cooking skills are limited to about 5 dishes...if you don't count grilling steaks as a skill, then I guess I'm down to 4. At the moment, I live in South Korea as an elementary teacher and with that being said, I miss the good ol' USA and its plethora of food. I live in a "rural" town with a population of 100,000. It sounds really big, which it is..but the lacking of variety when it comes to food really stinks! Of course there are a few restaurants that I fancy, but I miss being able to have Chinese food for one meal then have Mexican food for the next. I've lived here for 6 months now and it has definitely made me realize that I was so spoiled when I lived in America because I could satisfy my cravings at any given time. Well my job only requires me to teach 3 hours a day and I,without a doubt, have nothing to do for the rest of the day. I woke up in the middle of the night a few nights ago and decided that I need to start learning how to cook various dishes and since I enjoy posting things about my latest adventures..I might as well make a blog about my cooking adventures. I kid you not when I say that I know nothing about cooking so bear with me if I do not use correct cooking terms..and if you,whoever you are and wherever you are in this world, lack cooking skills as well, I hope you start going "stir crazy" because if I can do it...then anyone certainly can. So here we go!

For my very first cooking adventure for my blog, I decided to go back to my roots and cook beef caldereta (Filipino stew).  Although there are several variations of beef caldereta, I decided to take it easy my first time around and use an already made seasoning instead of making it from scratch. The Mama Sita brand usually puts out really great tasting spices so I decided to use their Caldereta Spicy Sauce Mix. I tried to follow the instructions on the back of the package, but since my sources here are limited, I had to change it a bit and so this is my version of it :)








Here is a complete list of the ingredients:

1 pouch of Mama Sita's Caldereta Spicy Sauce Mix
2 pounds of beef (cut in cubes)
1 cup of peeled potatoes
1 cup of carrots
1 green bell pepper
 2 cups of water
 3 tablespoons of olive oil


1. First things first, wash all the vegetables and the meat before you slice away. The first thing to do is to heat up frying pan with olive oil. The first thing to prep was the beef. Since the only type of beef that I could find at my local grocery store was not thick enough to be sliced into the usual cube-shaped stew meat, I just cut it into small square strips. Once the pan was hot enough, pan fry the meat until it is brown. Stir occasionally in low fire.
2. While the meat is cooking, chop up the potatoes, carrots and bell pepper. Chop both the potatoes and carrots into cubes, while slice the bell pepper into triangular shapes.
3. After the meat has been browned, transfer the meat (oil and all) into a cooking pot and add 2 cups of water. Let it simmer for about 20 minutes and add more water as needed. I recommend that if you need to add more water, then add maybe a teaspoon of olive oil as well. Stir occasionally.
4. Once the dish starts boiling, add Mama Sita's Caldereta Spicy Mix as well as the potatoes and carrots. Stir and let it simmer for another 10 minutes***.
5. Lastly, add the bell pepper and simmer again while stirring occasionally.  Once cooked, serve it with hot rice.

***Your cooking times may vary. I just made sure to check the vegetables to make sure that weren't undercooked, or worse..overcooked. Once I was able to see that I could cut the thick potatoes using my wooden spoon and the pepper then I turned off the burner.

I definitely need to work on my presentation of things, but here is the finished result. And I have to say that in the past, I've made "decent" dishes, but this is definitely one that I am proud of.  So cheers :)