It seems like lately I’m boozing up all of my recipes. What can I say? The cold weather just gets me in the mood for infusing my cooking with all kinds of wine and beer and liquor. And this is no exception. This is one boozy stewzie. I just said “stewzie.” I don’t even know if I spelled it right. Okay, so stewzie isn’t a word, but whatever. Usually when I post recipes that call for alcohol I get at least one or two people asking for a substitution. This particular recipe is totally centered around the wine, so I don’t recommend leaving it out. (Try my vegan beef stew instead. You can get away with skipping the wine in that one.) Red wine with some herbs and seasonings makes an incredibly flavorful stew base. I’ve never had beef bourguignon, but I can’t imagine you’ll miss the meat with all the flavors in this vegan version. There are quite a few versions of mushroom bourguignon circulating on the internet, so I decided to do something different here: I swapped eggplant for the meat. OMG. Best decision ever. There are still some mushrooms in here (classic beef bourguignon even has mushrooms), and they’re excellent, but the eggplant soaks up the sauce and cooks up super tender with that melt-in-your mouth eggplant quality that I absolutely love about eggplant. Because this one is so intensely flavorful, I recommend serving it over some carbs. Is that how they do it with beef bourguignon? I’m not sure. But in any event, I served mine over pasta. I bet mashed potatoes, polenta, or even crusty bread would be equally awesome.
