Start this about 7 hours before you're planning upon serving it.  There's a solid THREE HOURS marinade time built in.

Ingredients:

2 lb. beef stew meat  (or 1 1/4 lb. which is what I had)

1 cup red wine

fresh (4 sprigs) or dried (um, maybe 1 tsp?) parsley

fresh (1 sprig) or dried (I think I used about 1/2 tsp) thyme

4 T. butter or margarine

1 onion, sliced

1 T. flour 

1/4 cup beef broth (which translates into 1/4 c. hot water with 1/4 tsp. beef boullion granules)  

several pearl onions (I keep the frozen ones on hand)

5 or 6 mushrooms, quartered

---------------------

In a medium bowl pour the wine, toss in the herbs (if you've got a bay leaf you might as well throw it in there), and add the beef. Cover and refrigerate for three hours.

Three hours later.....

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium high heat, sauteing the sliced onion until nearly tender.  Remove the beef from the marinade, reserving the latter, and add the meat to the onions.  Cook until browned.  Now remove both onions and beef...but don't let 'em go too far, you'll need 'em soon...add the flour to the pan and stir like a mad thing.  The stupid flour will probably still pill up on you, but don't worry about it.  Next add the broth and the reserved marinade, stir it nicely, then return the beef and onions.  Cover and simmer for another three hour hours.

You are probably wondering, "Hey! What about those pearl onions and mushrooms?"  I parted company from the official recipe and just added them to the pot an hour, or maybe it was an hour and a half, before serving.  The official recipe wanted me to mussy up another pan by sauteing them in some more butter and serving them as a garnish, but that seemed like more trouble than it's worth.  My way worked fine, thankyouverymuch, and almost all of it got eaten.  Dmitry liked it lots.

Serve over Texmati rice (which is my favorite, but if you're a Minute Rice sort of person, well, you just hold your head up high and use that instead).

This was really very good, and quite simple.  I'm dreadful fond of good and simple.  ;^)