Boeuf Bourguignon

It's Boeuf Bourguignon, boys and girls!  I never knew what the big deal was about this recipe - I mean, it's just beef stew, right?  Well, the French onion soup recipe has nothing on this when it comes to being time consuming, I'll tell you that.  This recipe calls for stew meat (found at my local grocery store labeled "beef stew meat" - if not, I would have been lost), which you have to trim and cut into pieces.  Step 1 = pretty easy.   It then marinates in wine with herbs and vegetables for 1-24 hours (This got a couple of hours, since that's all the time I had).  I heard once that when cooking with wine, you should use a wine that you would want to drink, and therefore would get a flavor that you like.  Problem here is that I really don't like red wine, so I just used the only dry that we had, and it worked fine. Once it marinates, the meat has to drain, and the veggies also are strained, and the strained wine is kept for later.  Once all of this had taken place, I realized (to my very true sadness) that I was supposed to use cracked peppercorns in the marinade, not whole peppercorns.  This does not sound like a big deal, except for the fact that you end up using (and eating) everything - the peppercorns don't come out - and if you use whole ones, you will chomp down on them later, which is not at all pleasant.  That said, I spent 15 minutes (after straining the veggies) picking through the diced onions and vegetables to pick out about a tablespoon of whole peppercorns.  Not fun.  My goal is to follow recipes completely, so when it said to cook up diced bacon - something I usually wouldn't take the time to do - I did that, and then sauteed the (drained and dried) stew meat in the grease.  I'm not sure what I am doing wrong, but the pan around the meat always seems to burn while the meat is cooking, and I feel like it shouldn't do that.  I did cook in batches this time (as opposed to the stroganoff foolishness) which worked well, and then cooked the strained veggies after that.  When all of the individual cooking is finished, everything is returned to the pan to cook for another hour and a half.  I was supposed to add pearl onions at this point, but couldn't find any (Trader Joe's - what's the deal? I was counting on you!!), so quartered regular onions.  After the hour and a half, you add mushrooms, and cook that for another 20 minutes before it is finished.  It was a pretty good meal, but it was WAY more work than I bargained for, and I probably won't make it again for a long, long time.  If ever.