This is the dish that everyone always makes me bring to gatherings. It is so good, even people who rarely eat veggies will rave. Serve it with a risotto, such as asparagus risotto, for a wonderfully filling vegetarian meal (even if you're not a vegetarian -- I'm not). The leftovers can be thrown together and it tastes even better the next day, and can be used as a side dish with roasted chicken or some such. Fabulous, versatile dish.

Made this last night with fresh strawberries at the peak of their season. It's light, not too sweet and oh-so-tasty. Even my husband, who normally won't eat strawberries, had only good things to say. I did not find it dry at all, it just tasted like cornmeal, as one would expect. As a side note, I used regular (i.e. bleached) flour and vanilla yogurt because that's what I had on hand, and these worked fine. Simply a perfect way to use those summer strawberries!

This is a fantastic comfort food recipe. Not only did my husband, who, like me, has grown accustomed to "gourmet" from living in San Francisco for 10 plus years, love it, so did my 16-month old daughter! (For her I removed the chiles that were already cooked in and it wasn't at all too spicy for her.) I added a tad more chili powder, and probably a touch more salt, and it was perfect. I did find it easier to leave the biscuits intact rather than trying to separate them in layers. Just stretch them out a bit to fit the pan, and they should be flat enough. All in all, delicious!

I too found this to be a good basic recipe that improves with just a little doctoring. I took tips from other users and floured the meat before browning it, and also added extra corn starch. I don't think it has too much wine, but I do think it should cook longer than 4-6 hours for maximum flavor. Be sure to use a good meat, too! Also, I couldn't find consomme, so to get that intense flavor I added an extra can of beef stock (using a bit less water) and then threw in a boullion cube. Next time I will use more carrots and more potatoes, and add a little Worchesthire sauce, which I didn't have on hand, though I did use some balsamic vinegar. On the whole, though, this is a good, classic stew and very, very easy.

I just took these out of the oven. They smell fantastic, but I wish I'd bought two packages of the phyllo shells. Either they were too small or my pear was too big -- or maybe I used too much cheese. Whatever the cause, in an effort to use all the filling, I overfilled some the cups and they've spilled over, causing the cups to crumble on one side. I'm hoping they don't completely fall apart when I take them off the baking sheet as there's cheese mixture everywhere. Next time I think I will use twice as many cups and not overfill them. I think the taste is going to be out of this world, though, and they were incredibly easy to put together.