We do buy cheap wine, but aim for quality

After a year of blogging about food, I find that it's becoming harder for me to cook something I haven't cooked before. Hence less blog-worthy material. Tonight we ate baked breaded catfish for dinner. Yum. But I've already blogged about that. Yesterday I took fresh baked French rolls to a dinner party. Would have snapped a shot and blogged about those, but that recipe is already on the blog too. Maybe I'll shift gears temporarily. Blog about wine for awhile. Cheap wine.

I love going to a big wine store (Jacobs Liquor Exchange or Grove Liquor are my favorites in Wichita) and strolling the aisles to find interesting, inexpensive selections. Fortunately, there are lots of nice, cheap wines on the market these days. Tonight for dinner we had a bottle of 2006 Yard Dog, an Australian blend of Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot within my preferred $10-or-so range. I'm not a slave to wine ratings (I was amused but not surprised by news this week calling into question Wine Spectator's standards. Check this out.) but this has garnered passable reviews. I'm gravitating toward relatively rich blended reds lately, and this one fit the bill. Dave tends to prefer something drier, lighter, but he gave this a thumbs up. This wine would go perfectly with a rich beef stew, but what do I know? It tasted dandy with catfish, IMHO. And I dig the label.

Corn, spinach and fat-free feta-- all legal on my diet

Having lost the few pounds I wanted to lose this summer, I've switched from Weightwatchers Flex Plan (where you count every "point" and feel hungry ALL the time) to Weightwatchers Core Plan (where you can eat all the fruit, vegetables, non-fat cheese and lean meat you want without adding up the points). I miss bread, I miss sweets, but I don't miss feeling like I ought to throw away my favorite jeans because I can't squeeze into them. So I'll keep this up awhile longer.

Being on the Core Plan means I could really enjoy dinner last night, of delicious stew and a salad chock full of different flavors. We had an ear of grilled corn left over from a couple nights ago. (Always grill extra to have on hand for salad.) I threw that into a bowl of spinach, tomatoes, avocado, carrots, green grapes (cut in half) and crumbled fat-free feta. I asked Dave what he thought of the fat-free cheese, and he thought it tasted perfectly acceptable. I mixed a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing. All legal on my diet.

I also thawed out a batch of my homemade blonde brownies to serve for dessert. But (sigh) I didn't have one.

Montana beef stew -- It's what's for dinner

Dave just got back from a road trip to Montana, and he brought back a cooler full of Montana beef from his folks' ranch near Yellowstone Park. So, when I got up this morning and saw that it was a rainy, cloudy, stay-at-home day, I decided to cook up some of that delicious meat in a slow-cooker stew.

Dave's nephew is traveling through Wichita today on his way home to Montana after working the summer in Texas. Supper with us may give him a taste of home before he actually hits the Montana border.

Montana Beef Stew

2 pounds lean stew meat
2 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 cup dry white wine
2 large sweet onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup chopped carrots
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
4 red potatoes, diced
1/4 green pepper, diced
1 tablespoon canola oil

Brown stew meat in canola oil over medium high heat. Put into a slow cooker. Add remaining ingredients. Add enough water to cover meat. Cook on high for 6 hours. Enjoy with a nice salad and crusty bread.