as usual, i did this all totally wrong. or, i mean, as wrong as you can go with a delicious California red.
a tinge of fall weather seemed to beg for something hearty to put in our bellies. i had some beef tips of some nature in the fridge. i had a bottle of red wine. obviously, the answer was beef bourguignon. what could go wrong?
i remember my mom making this dish when i was a kid. we didn’t have a slow cooker, but i loved smelling this rich stew simmer for hours in the same contraption she also used to make her amazing fried chicken. swear to god, this is the exact one. avocado green and all. (apparently, it fetches $24.50 on Etsy these days!)
so anyway, with such delish memories, of course i went straight to my Joy of Cooking book for guidance from the recipe she used. for some ridiculous reason, this recipe isn’t on their site. thank goodness, Georgia at The Comfort of Cooking tested and posted it, so i don’t have to do all that typing myself. i love you guys, but it is a weeknight. in my version, i just kind of took all the ingredients and threw them in the slow cooker all day, with a couple tablespoons of sifted flour added on top of the meat to thicken the sauce. i mean, y’all knew there had to be something. and then there’s always the question of whether to serve it over potatoes, noodles or rice. i personally like rice, but Spy wanted the noodles. anyway, go check it out. in the meantime, i’m gonna tell you what went wrong and talk about the wine. ’cause it’s kind of the same thing.
this Wonderful Wine Co. Red Blend is amazing. really. amazing. really big and juicy. it’s all cherries with a little bit of spice. as much as “jammy” is overused to describe reds lately, this really, truly is. i enjoyed it immensely before dinner. and with dinner. and after dinner. why wasn’t there another bottle??
the problem was, it was not the right wine to put in the dinner. it had too much flavor and sweetness for the recipe. something much lighter would have given better taste and not been so overpowering. i had no idea what i was doing when i pulled it off the wine rack in a school morning haze. next time, i’ll look it up instead of just judging a wine by its label. live, learn and eat the leftovers anyway, right? at least i discovered a new wine i really love and rediscovered a great old recipe (that i need to do right next time!). happy hump day, y’all!