Beef stew at home

One of my first meals I cooked upon my arrival in Ottawa was a beef stew. I love making a very refined beef bourguignon, but this was more rustic version. I was able to use many of the same techniques in making this stew though. I started by browning all the meat before cooking the vegetables to get a good flavour into the stew. The cooking liquid was a couple of bottles of pale ale, about half a jar of strained tomatoes and some beef stock out of a box. It turned into a rich gravy with a minimal effort.
For her part, Daphne made biscuits to go with the stew. Apparently we don't have the right kind of self-raising flour here in Canada that she would have used if she was in the South. I can't remember the brand, but several biscuit recipes that we looked at specified it. It was all great together and a pretty good start.