This time of the year, I look forward to a warm hearty dinner that's not too complicated. Winter stews are perfect for putting together some of your favorite ingredients and cooking them in water, and transforming them into a thick rich savory blend of meat and vegetables.

Lately, I've been cooking beef stews, in particular the French Beef Bourguignon. I first tried this dish when I was invited for dinner at my friend's house, in the suburbs of Paris. I was immediately struck by the incredible juiciness and tenderness of the beef. Beef Bourguignon is probably my favorite stew. The beef simmers in an assertive Burgundy for hours resulting in a mildly sweet succulent meat.

While I tend to make beef stews, there are several other kinds of stew to choose from when cooking, including many that are vegetarian. Below are 8 recipes for very different stews:

1. Martha Stewart's Indian Stew - It's perfect for thos vegetarians out there!
2. Beef Bourguigon
3. Kabset Baitenjan - This is an Iraqi-style beef and vegetable stew.
4. Braised Lamb Stew
5. Baby Root Vegetable Stew with Black Tea Prunes - This is another vegetarian stew.
6. Moroccan Chicken Stew with Sweet Potatoes
   
7. Georgian Pork Stew
8. Bahian Seafood Stew with Coconut and Tomato

• Beef stews from around the world.
• The world of offal.
• A close-up look at the grill of the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown.
• The Plonk of the Month.
• Restaurant reviews: Isaac's on the Waterfront, Georgie Ds Place, and 65 Main and Dog Bar.
• This week's recipes: Chocolate Brownie Custards, Chocolate Souffle Cakes, New Year's Rice Cake, and Molten Chocolate Cakes.

A couple of Friday nights, I took a break from school work in order to make a big pot of beef stew. I needed to retreat to some deeply comforting food and in cold weather there's nothing like beef stew (at least in my mind) to warm you up. It had been awhile since I had made it and but it's one of those recipes that always comes back to me when I have the ingredients spread out in front of me.

You can adjust this recipe to your tastes. I used about a cup of red wine to deglaze the pan when the veggies have picked up all the caramelized brown bits that come from browning the meat, but if you can use a little water instead. I always use parsnips in mine, but if you find them objectionable, feel free to leave them out. Instructions on how to make my version of beef stew are after the jump.

The more I think about this idea, the more I like it: a line of food you can buy at the grocery store based on the food Aunt Bee used to make on The Andy Griffith Show.

Mayberry's Finest will include canned food like beef stew and mustard greens, and they''ll also have packaged cake/muffin mixes for buttermilk buscuits and lemon icebox muffins. The food is targeted to baby boomers (and younger people who really love the show, I assume) and each package will include pics of a certain character, script excerpts, and trivia.

Sounds like the ultimate comfort food for TV fans.

It's too bad Frank DeCaro isn't on The Daily Show anymore. I miss his movie reviews and other commentaries.

But he has a web site, and it's not just another star site with the latest news about what he's up to, he actually has a really extensive list of recipes from celebrities! It's really well done, because you can search by the week, by the name, even by the type of meal it is.

You can make Paul Lynde's Diet Waffles, Andy Warhol's Ghoulish Ghoulash Stuffed Cabbage, and even Burt Reynold's Beef Stew. Or maybe you'd like Tony Randall's Crunchy Turkey Wraps or Vanna White's Layered Pea Salad or Moby's Pan Bagna. Whatever food you're in the mood for and/or celebrity you're interested in, there's something here for everyone. I'm going to try Richard Deacon's Bitter and Booze, which sounds like the ultimate booze dessert to drown your sorrows. Deacon wrote a microwave oven cookbook in the early 70s which I'll have to track down.

My mom never made beef stew or any of the classic "American" dishes when we were little. We mostly ate Korean food, and it was a very special occasion when we ate "American" foods like spaghetti or steak. However, things like stew never made it to our table unless it came from a can. Dinty Moore was a special "American" night, and still, we ate it over rice, and with kimchee. Well, now I'm determined to cook and eat all of those things that I never ate as a child, including beef stew (don't worry, I will never ever attempt to make spam from scratch).

The beauty of beef stew is that it's beef stew one day, and then can be "remixed" a few times through the week. For a busy lifestyle, this is incredible. You can still have the satisfaction of cooking from scratch all day on Sunday, and do a re-heat with a tweak to eat during the week. (Yep, that was totally meant to rhyme.) The stew I made is a classic recipe - nothing fancier than beef, carrots and potatoes stewed in broth, and yet, it beats Dinty Moore into the ground. Certainly nothing beats the food we ate as kids, even from a can, but at some point, we have to give up Campbell's, too, right?

Look out in the next few days for a few "remixes" of beef stew. Of course, if you have suggestions for this enormous pot of stew I have, please, suggest away.

We're prepping our ingredients for Gardiane La Camargue, French beef stew in the style of the cowboys Francais in the Camargue, south of Arles. The dish is from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking.

Whoops! A few hours have passed since we cut the meat into 3- or 4-ounce pieces. Sorry about that, the baby that was getting into the cat food last time, I realized he'd better have some human food. Oh well, such is life. Now it's time to prep the carrots, onions and garlic. The instructions just say "garlic cloves," not "minced" or "peeled" or "unpeeled."

Hmmm. I decided to just peel them and crush just a bit in the process (I smack them with the wide edge of my knife to loosen the skins). My cloves look a little small... so I use eight or nine. I love garlic. I decide to toss it all in. A little extra garlic never hurt anyone. Right?

Today we'll be prepping our ingredients for Gardiane La Camargue, French beef stew in the style of the cowboys Francais in the Camargue, south of Arles. The dish is from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking. It's one day before serving and time to combine:

• 4-5 pounds stewing beef, cut into cubes weighing about four ounces each
• five cloves garlic
• 2-3 medium yellow onions, cut into rounds
• 4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch lengths
• 1 bottle red wine such as Côtes-du-Rhône

The first thing I'm going to do is figure out what a four-ounce cube of beef should look like. I didn't ask my butcher to cut them, as recommended in Wells' recipe. Hmm...

We all miss Sara Moulton's Cooking Live like crazy. But instead of continuing to whine and complain about it, we're taking measures. Until we launch the Slashfood Network, we're just gonna bring the live cooking to you via blog.

Each Friday evening one of your lovely hosts or hostesses will be making a new or favorite dish with you. This week, I'll be hosting gardiane La Camargue, La Camargue's Beef Stew with Black Olives, from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking. As Patricia says, the gardiane is from France's "cowboy country" and is a stew of beef, black olives and red wine.

This recipe requires some advance prep so we'll be starting the dish on Thursday evening. In the meantime, you'll need to head to the grocery store for the following ingredients:

• 4-5 pounds stewing beef (like round and chuck)
• garlic
• 2-3 medium yellow onions
• 4 carrots
• 1 bottle red wine such as Côtes-du-Rhône
• 4 ounces oil-cured black olives

You should have olive oil, thyme and bay leaves in your pantry, but if you don't, add those to your list. You'll need a large, non-reactive bowl (like glass or stoneware) and a large, non-reactive casserole or pot that can go on the stovetop and in the oven (cast iron would work great). OK, see you tomorrow evening! larger scan after the jump