Tuna with Tomatoes, Parsnips, Spinach, and Chickpeas

This is one of those "clean out the pantry because I don't want to go to the store" kind of recipes, but it's pretty good, easy, and made almost entirely of stuff that I typically have on hand. A. was initially suspicious of this, but seemed to like it.

2 cans Tuna
2 cans diced Tomatoes
2 cans Chickpeas
2 Parsnips
Spinach
Onion
Garlic
Rice

Steam parsnips. Sautee onion and garlic for about4-5 minutes. Add tomatoes, parsnips, and chickpeas and bring just to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Add tomatoes and a couple handfuls of spinach and simmer, covered, for another 5 minutes or so. Serve over rice.

We had 3 good-sized servings leftover; could probably have stretched it into four. The parsnips were the one thing that I added that weren't standard on-hand ingredients, and I didn't actually steam them beforehand. I would steam them the next time, though, as they didn't get as tender as I would have hoped.

Winter Stew

I made this stew on Sunday but we didn't eat it until Monday, as I could let the flavors spend a day diffusing. This is another dish where I was taking advantage of the new dutch over. We had some chicken thighs in the freezer, so I thawed them out, and decided to build a stew around them and some winter veggies (my measurements here are very inexact):

1-2 lbs. Chicken thighs
Salt and Pepper to season
1 lb (approx) Parsnips (chopped 1/4-1/2 in. thick)
1 lb (approx) Sweet Potatoes (chopped 1/4-1/2 in. thick)
2-3 cups Kale (chopped)
5-6 cloves garlic
1 onion, sliced
1 TB tomato paste
1 beer (stout)
Chicken stock
1/4 cup flour

Set oven to 300. Season the chicken and brown it in the dutch oven, medium high, set aside. Heat oil and sautee onion and garlic with the tomato paste, medium low, for 3-5 minutes. Add flour and sautee briefly. Add parsnips and potatoes, chicken, and pour the beer into the pot. Add chicken stock to bring the liquid level up to cover the ingredients halfway. Stir and put the pot, covered, in the oven. After half an hour, add kale. Cook an additional half an hour.

This turned out really well. I think maybe the stout was a bit too strongly flavored—next time I'd consider either a slighly lighter beer, or even some white wine. Some herbs might have flavored it a bit more, as well. A. thinks maybe kale and parsnips are too much, that one or the other would be a better choice, and have a more neutral veggie instead (or beans, since I know kale and white beans is a fairly classic combo). I did like, in this combo, the visual aspect of it—it looked like a basic stew, but the potatoes were actually parsnips and the carrots were actually sweet potatoes. We've got probably 4 servings left over.

There's a basic stew template in the Jan/Feb Cooks Illustrated that was indispensable for this, as it provides a good chart of times for various meats and veggies. This is the best basis for variation I've seen.