Lil's Beef Stew

The Garden of Eating hosted a challenge this month - comfort food. The beginning of the month I wrote about a chicken cutlet meal we had at our friends L. & P.'s home - the cutlets were outstanding as well as the beef stew she made. We have been talking about it all month and after a very long week and weekend, we decided we needed some comfort. So we picked up the ingredients and slow cooked this fantastic beef stew all afternoon. The beef was incredibly tender, literally melted in your mouth. The stew is made with white wine so it gives it a beautiful color, not typical of your gray colored stews, when you use red wine. The vegetables are cooked just enough to hold their colors with a little crunch to them - perfect! The only addition I did was to throw some brown mushrooms in, that we had in the fridge. We served it with some crusty french baguettes and a bottle of Chateauneuf de Pape. Warm, cozy, bursting with flavor and very comfortable!