beef stew

bought a package of beef the other day that was described as "beef stew meat." that's helpful. anyway, despite its horribly vague name, it actually looked decent - perhaps even promising. so i browned it in some olive oil, then took the beef out and added onions, garlic, dried chanterelles, salt and pepper to the dutch oven. once all that had softened a bit, i placed the meat back in along with half a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. why a cab? well cause that's what i had on hand of course :) after a couple hours of simmering in a 350 degree oven the meat had become tender, the mushrooms nicely reconstituted and the sauce perfectly reduced. i added some carrots into the mix fir the last 20 minutes of cooking and served all that with some tasty mashed yukon gold potatoes. best part is you can make this ahead of time cause it will certainly reheat wonderfully and prob taste even better the next day. and if you're wondering why i keep cooking stews in the middle of summer... simple, these cuts of meats are cheap!