mozzarella en carrozza with sundried tomato jam

No pictures today, I'm afraid, but I'd like to tell you about the first real meal Nathan and I made after they snipped my wires and replaced them with rubber bands. It took me about twice as long as usual to smash up everything and carefully swallow it, but for what was essentially a grilled cheese sandwich, this mozzarella in carrozza was pretty soft and easy on my wounded jaw.

It was also a really nice night in general. Nathan's roommate, Pete, moved out in September, but we all ate this meal together before he moved downtown. It was also a special night because Pete recently started dating our very good friend Jess. This was a long overdue development. It's too bad that Jess and I can't hang out while visiting our respective boyfriends, but I'm of course very happy for them regardless of where Pete is living.

I've had mozzarella in carrozza before, but it wasn't quite like this. Here, the fresh mozzarella was sandwiched between two slices of bread and dipped in a mix of egg and milk, and then fried in butter. Basically, it was a hybrid grilled cheese french toast. When I had this on Arthur Ave at Marios, the bread must have been much much thinner, because I really thought it was just breaded and fried. This was also delicious, but much more sandwichy. I think the key was that the bread soaked up so much of the egg and milk that it kind of melded together with the cheese. If our bread had been thinner, it would have been an even more cohesive dish, and more like what I remembered.

The accompanying jam was what really excited me about this dish. Sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers with strawberry jam, a little sugar, red wine vinegar and salt, it seemed easy enough. I liked it well enough, but we probably could have drained less of the olive oil off the peppers and tomatoes. It was definitely too dry, and not nearly jammy enough. Maybe my solid food cooking skills were still rusty? I'd consider making this again, but I wouldn't exactly jump at the chance. It was definitely tasty and hit the spot after a month of slurping purees through my teeth, but it didn't quite come together.

ice cream!

So I got the most awesome get well soon present after I broke my jaw. It was an ice cream machine, thoughtfully sent to me by Nathan's family. They knew that I was incredibly impressed by Tenli's homemade blackberry swirl ice cream, and they knew my post injury diet consisted of almost entirely milk shakes. Basically, this gift was the perfect fit— a big thank you to Tenli, Marie, Raisa and Weston!


my ice cream maker churning away on its first batch

They also thoughtfully included a copy of David Lebovitz's exhaustive ice cream cookbook, One Perfect Scoop. It has tons of amazing recipes for ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt, sorbets and granitas, as well as delightful things to mix in or sprinkle on top of your cold confections. I of course read the whole book cover to cover and was able to learn quite a bit about frozen, churned desserts.

One thing that you may not already know is that many types of ice cream are made from a custard base. This is generally made by carefully cooking egg yolks with cream and sugar until the mixture thickens. I say carefully because egg yolks cooked over direct heat have a very strong tendency to scramble and harden, which doesn't make a very good ice cream base at all. If this sounds intimidating, you are not alone, which is why I chose an ice cream that did NOT have a custard base for my very first batch.


easy ice cream

To be specific, I made a Philadelphia style vanilla, and to be fair, I have always preferred that to French vanilla ice cream. Some thing about the crisp visual contrast between the white ice cream and the dark speckles of vanilla bean is way more appealing to me than the rich, eggy yellowness of French vanilla. I like both, but Philadelphia vanilla has long been my favorite of all ice cream flavors. It certainly didn't hurt that it was the easiest of all David's recipes, but there's a good chance that I would have gone with a classic vanilla as my first flavor regardless. I love it that much.

How easy is the recipe? Here, I'll give it to you.

Vanilla Ice Cream, Philadelphia Style
(from David Lebovitz's One Perfect Scoop, published 2007)
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
¾ cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
¾ tsp vanilla extract

Pour one cup of the cream into a medium saucepan and add the sugar and salt. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the saucepan and add the pod to the pot. Warm over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved.

Remove from the heat and add the remaining cup of cream, the cup of milk and the vanilla extract.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. When ready to churn, remove the vanilla bean, rinsing and reserving it for another use, and then freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.


Philly vanilla with fresh whipped cream

Beautiful, easy and delicious. Wow. Tasted exactly like every other Philadelphia style vanilla I've ever had, which is to say AWESOME. I had some extra heavy cream, so I quickly made some whipped cream with my electric mixer. A classy, classic, all white combo.

This was actually the second thing I was able to eat after my wires were snipped and I went on the soft food diet. (Nathan made me some Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs for lunch, but then I went home and made this.) Let me tell you, it quite hit the spot.

I know that an ice cream machine is a bit of an investment, both monetarily, and in terms of much coveted kitchen space, but I'm really enjoying mine. Being able to churn my own ice cream has opened a whole new world of culinary possibilities, I'd encourage you to get one yourself if this is something you'd like to do at home. Big thanks again to Tenli and Marie for the super amazing gift!

foraged beach plum and strawberry crisp

So this weekend was my first one without wires in over 5 weeks. I celebrated by heading out to Long Island with Nathan. There, we spent time with our respective families and enjoyed ourselves out on the water. In addition to sailing in Northport Harbor with my dad, we also got to take a motor boat out to Fire Island, which was surprisingly beautiful. It really felt like it was miles and miles from anything. Gorgeous.



Here we are out on the beach. The surf was incredibly rough courtesy of the otherwise utterly unimpressive Hurricane Earl, so we couldn't go swimming, but it was still awesome.



That first photo is just a small sample of the mind blowingly beautiful view. What you can't see is that the small, scrubby looking little bushes on either side of the walkway are actually laden with these tiny and tart beach plums. They look a little bit like overgrown blueberries, and are sweet with a tangy bitter aftertaste. Nathan and I had never seen them before, but we foraged a few handfuls, which we transported in my camera case, and took home to bake with.



Like the friendly Fire Island natives who assured us that these strange fruits were edible, my mom knew exactly what the beach plums were, and that they are most commonly made into jam. I like jam, but I don't use it all that often. Instead, I decided to make a nice beach plum crisp for dessert.



Here is the recipe, which either my mom or I clipped from Newsday years ago, although it says it was distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Anyway, I was only able to forage a small amount of beach plums, so I had to scale everything way down. We had only enough for four very small servings, so it must have been less than half the amount. I did not adjust the ratios in the written recipe, because I don't think I could accurately represent them. The great thing about crisps is that it's not a real topping, but just a crumbly topping that basically toasts on top of the fruit. It's very hard to mess up.



I also made a few substitutions with the ingredients, so I made those adjustments. The topping called for half butter and half oil, but my mom insisted on all butter, which worked perfectly. I also swapped out a couple of tablespoons of apple juice in the crust for maple syrup. The fruit filling was the most significant change. Originally, it included plums, blueberries and peaches or nectarines. I obviously used beach plums instead, and also strawberries, or else it would have been a little bitty baby crisp. Obviously, you can interchange whatever kind of fruits you have around. Also, I accidentally used regular sugar instead of the prescribed brown, with no ill effects. Finally, the serving suggestion was with vanilla frozen yogurt, but we went with Philadelphia style vanilla. Yum.



Without further ado:

Beach Plum-Berry Crisp
Topping:
¾ cup brown sugar, packed
¾ cup rolled oats
¾ cup flour
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp maple syrup

Fruit Filling
2 pounds ripe beach plums, pitted and sliced
2 cups sliced strawberries
¼ cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
dash ground ginger

1 qt vanilla ice cream, optional

1. Preheat oven to 400°. For topping, combine sugar, oats and flour in large bowl. Blend in butter until crumbly. Stir in maple syrup with fork until mixture is evenly moistened. Set aside.
2. For filling, combine beach plums, strawberries, maple syrup, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, nutmeg and ginger and toss gently to combine in a shallow 2-quart baking dish.
3. Sprinkle topping evenly over the fruit mixture. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until top is golden and filling is bubbling. Let cool about 10 minutes. Serve hot or warm, with vanilla ice cream. Makes 8 servings.



It was slightly tart because of the beach plums, but super delicious and easy. And I got to forage! So cool!

really good flatbread, IIRC

So I will be upfront with you and admit that I haven't actually tried these flatbreads since nearly a year ago. However, they were pretty damn good then, when I made them for snacking during a dream weekend out in the Hamptons at my friend Jess's uncle's house. So good in fact, that Jess insisted that I make them again for the Lupus benefit that she and my friend Becky were hosting a couple of weeks ago. Of course, with a jaw wired completely shut, there really wasn't any way for me to taste test, but I think they went over ok.

It was a lovely event, hosted in Becky's empty Sty Town apartment. There was art, and wine, and cheese, and my roommate Laura's brother Paul's improv troop gave a performance. Basically, it was just the sort of classy event that you want to serve a delicious rosemary flatbread at. I found this recipe on only the biggest food blog on the web, and its provenance is none other than the dearly departed Gourmet Magazine, so you should expect great things from this little bugger.



These flatbreads look perfectly rustic and elegant, taste deliciously crispy and wonderful, and they also happen to be incredibly easy to straightforward to make. So basically, there is no excuse not take make these for your Labor Day weekend gatherings. You could serve them with cheese or sundried tomatoes, but they are great just by themselves. Just mix up the dough, roll out, bake and break into messy little shards. You'll be done before you know it.

The only reason this doesn't take ten minutes start to finish is that you split the dough in thirds and bake each flatbread one after the other, which draws things out a bit. Otherwise, you just stir together flour, baking powder, salt, water, olive oil and the rosemary. The recipe calls for fresh, but dried works just fine. Then you roll it out, sprinkle with salt and more rosemary, and bake. Nothing to it.

I've also tried making these with alternate spices, mainly because my mom doesn't like rosemary. I love the woman to death, but this I will never understand. As an alternative, I grated in some cheddar cheese, which was pretty sweet. This time around I added some romano, oregano and red pepper. My friend Grace actually made these with cinnamon sugar in lieu of the spices, which I bet would be pretty great if you swapped olive oil out for vegetable oil. Basically, this is a good base for a crispy cracker flavored with whatever strikes your fancy.

Flatbreads seem so sophisticated and upscale, but they really are a snap. For a snack that's sure to impress and please, give these a shot!

spaghetti with lamb sausage and spicy tomato sauce

I'm not sure, but I might even be able to handle a meal like this these days. The doctors told me no chewing, so I've been trying to adhere to that, but I suspect that spaghetti and tiny slices of sausage would no longer be beyond my mending jaw's capabilities.



Nathan made this dinner for the two of us back in June. Even though it was perfectly delicious, he has declined to feature it in a blog post of his own. He says its too boring. But how could delicious spaghetti in a slightly spicy, onion laden tomato sauce with organic lamb sausage from the Union Square Market be boring?



Topped with grated cheese and served up with a side of sauteed spinach and some Italian bread, this so-called "boring" dinner is the kind of good eating I've been sadly deprived of for far too long.

My next doctor's visit is tomorrow, so please say a prayer that they go ahead and take all this metal out of my mouth! I'd do anything to have an unencumbered mouth for the last week of what has been an incredibly disappointing and depressing summer. Is a good Labor Day weekend too much to ask for?

cucumber and roasted red pepper soup

cucumber soup with roasted red peppers

I will tell you up front that I didn't like this as much as my other cucumber soup. It wasn't bad, but the flavors just didn't meld together as well as the previous soup. This probably had something to do with the fact that the other soup was a tried and true flavor combination, and this soup was just me throwing whatever food co-op veggies I had left in the fridge in the blender and hoping for the best. Sometimes improvisation can be a recipe for success, but in this case it was a rather forgettable endeavor.

Basically, I roasted, peeled and seeded a sweet red pepper, and blended it up with a cucumber, a couple of scallions, peeled seeded tomatoes, a slice of jalapeno, sour cream, plain yogurt, dried cumin and garlic powder. It was fine, but a little strange. I probably should have added a lemon or something, because it was a little dull, aside from the hint of heat from the jalapeno.

Though this was ultimately a forgettable meal, I do want to show you something I am currently so, so happy not to be doing: straining my foods for bits of skins and seeds too large to enter a wired shut jaw.


a laborious task

For four long weeks, this time consuming task went hand and hand with eating. Scraping a spoon back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, coaxing little clumps of pulp and fruit flesh to pass through the fine mesh strainer so I could finally eat. It was by far the most frustrating part of the whole experience and delayed my meals considerably. It's no wonder I didn't have the patience to go back and add lemon juice after such an ordeal!

Right now, I am still on a soft food diet and cannot chew, but straining is thankfully a thing of the past. Hopefully, the coming week will see further improvement and allow me to eat more substantial foodstuffs. Fingers crossed!

avocado chocolate pudding

So in the event that you break your jaw, you'll probably end up googling your condition. Before too long you'll find the number one food blog on the subject, Jaws Wired Shut. I have to admit, I didn't spend all that much time poking around there, mainly because finding a bunch of specialized recipes would mean accepting that this injury would be defining my diet for a significant amount of time. Even after the two weeks of wires turned into four, I was still in a bit of denial. Frankly, I wanted to avoid dwelling on my situation, and a lot of the suggestions were things I figured out on my own, like adding peanut butter and bananas to my milkshakes.

However, I did find a couple of ideas during my limited browsing. For one, I blended one of the cupcakes Laura and I bought for our friend Matt's birthday from Magnolia bakery into a delicious milk shake. The second meal I prepared is currently the most recently posted entry, a avocado chocolate pudding, playfully called "chocomole." It sounds pretty bizarre, I admit, but the picture looked just like a creamy, rich chocolate pudding should.


avocado chocolate pudding

See?

All you need is a food processor and a few simple ingredients, and you can transform an avocado into a very unlikely dessert. I substituted cocoa powder for the 3½ tablespoons raw cacao powder, but other than that I followed the recipe as written. One avocado, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼-½ cup water, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ⅓ cup maple syrup, and ¼ teaspoon salt simply blended together in the food processor = pudding! It sounds crazy, but it really does work.

It was good, but it had a rather oily texture that became rather unpleasant after awhile. I poured some half and half on top, which helped with the sliminess, but it was still a bit too cinnamonny. I think that this is a rather clever way to make a more healthy and nutritious chocolate pudding, but it was a little strange and probably wouldn't appeal to people who aren't on soft or liquid diets.


half and half makes everything better

This wasn't a failure by any means, but there was definitely something slightly off about it. Just not quite the pudding you're used to. Which I suppose shouldn't be surprising, since it's made from avocados.

Gyro Smoothie

A couple of weeks ago, there was sort of a pity/sympathy party at Sarah's place. We made a bunch of smoothies and stuff in sort of a solidarnosc moment, since her jaw was wired and she was subsisting on a liquid diet.

Most people were content to puree fruits, ice cream, and the like. Their smoothies were delicious, yet mundane, the sort that any Tom, Dick, or Harry might make if armed with a fistful of berries and a blender. I, however, was not content to settle for mediocrity. In the best traditions of philosophy, science, and exploration, I resolved to go beyond, to push the boundaries of pureed food and challenge preconceived notions of what a blender could do. I did not simply want to make food; I wanted to craft a legend.

I made a gyro smoothie.

I journeyed to the local gyro guy (I refuse to call them halal carts, also that's gyro not yeero) and picked up a lamb gyro in a pita. Normally I would go for a mixed over rice (that is, both lamb and chicken over yellow or orange rice), but I felt that it would not make a very good smoothie due to the large amount of rice. The gyro guy produced a nice, packed gyro, with plenty of lamb topped with hot sauce and white sauce (is it tzatziki? is it just mayo?).


Smug as hell, making history

After arriving at Sarah's house, I cut the gyro into four pieces to facilitate blending. It needed some coaxing, by way of chicken broth, to truly form a puree, but once enough was added, I managed to puree the sandwich to a drinkable consistency.


Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!


Getting psyched, getting very pumped.

It looked a lot like barf, it smelled a little like barf, but it did not taste like barf. At the start, I was very happy about the flavor, with its strong notes of lamb and pita. I quickly drained about half of the thick puree before slowing down between 50 and 75 percent of the way through. My initial enjoyment of the concoction was tempered by its thick, heavy starchy quality. The crispness, brightness, and tartness that the lettuce, tomato, and white sauce give a gyro all kind of got lost in the middle of lamb and pita. I tried to remedy this by adding hot sauce halfway through, but this did not help much. Ultimately, I was only able to get about 80% of the way through the gyro smoothie.


Smells like victory.

The next night I was discussing my monster with a Greek gentleman, and we brainstormed some ideas. He suggested that up to four times the usual amount of tzatziki would have helped. I agree. Additional lettuce, tomato, and possibly cucumber would also improve the flavor and consistency. As I write this, I am even reconsidering the use of chicken broth as the blending liquid - probably yogurt would help preserve the gyro flavor better and result in a lighter drink.

If any of you has the stones to walk in the footsteps of a giant, maybe you could try some of these suggestions and let me know how they work out. Until then, I think I will stick to solid gyros.

corn pesto

So while I was home last week I came across this amazing recipe for Tagliatelle with Corn Pesto from Bon Appetit.


creamy corn pesto with bacon and basil

As pointed out by the folks at Serious Eats, while the dish is called pesto, it bears a fairly strong resemblance to carbonara thanks to its creamy corn sauce and crunchy bacon.

As it just so happens, pesto and spaghetti carbonara clock in at my number one and number two favorite pasta dishes of all time, so for me, this recipe was an immediate showstopper. Combining the best worlds of carbonara and pesto with sinfully sweet summer corn? Broken jaw be damned, there was no way I wasn't going to make this immediately, especially with my parent's fridge full of beautiful food co-op corn and basil that I had dutifully carted home from Harlem on the LIRR.

First, I fried up the bacon. Then I shucked the corn, broke each ear in half and cut off all the kernels. I recently read a piece in Cook's Illustrated claiming that you lose much of the corn's natural sweetness by removing the kernels, and that you should scrape the knife up and down to remove the milk from the cob, so I did that too. Meanwhile, the bacon was nice and crispy, so I took that out, and then cooked the corn and a couple of cloves minced garlic in the greasy pan with salt and pepper. There was so much corn that this took a couple of batches.

The recipe then called for blending this together with toasted pine nuts and parmesan in the food processor. I changed all three of those things: toasted walnuts, romano cheese, blender. The first two substitutions worked fine... the last one didn't. There wasn't enough liquid in the corn to blend up properly, and everything kept getting stuck. Since we used gluten free pasta, which makes the pasta water incredibly nasty slimy starchy, we couldn't thin the sauce with pastas water as suggested, so I just added more olive oil. Eventually I managed to blend everything into a reasonably smooth sauce, but it was kind of a pain in the ass.

We drained the pasta, and tossed it with the corn pesto, reserved corn kernels and bacon. My mom chiffonaded a hefty amount of basil, which we stirred in. For purposes of presentation, it would have looked better if we sprinkled some on top, but we'd been blending an insane amount of corn pesto for like ten minutes, so that wasn't really on our radar at that point. Anyway, season with last and pepper, and you're done.

As for what I thought of the dish, it was pretty damn good, even though I only had a pureed strained version. I will say that the proportion of corn to pasta, (6 ears to a half a pound!), in this recipe is quite insane, but that is ok. I only used 5 ears of corn rather than the suggested 6, and doubled the amount of pasta. Even then, there was so much thick corn puree that I didn't mix in most of the reserved kernels, and I also held aside a fair amount of the sauce to further puree and drink myself. I'd say you really need four large ears of corn at the very most to comfortably sauce a pound of pasta. Also, there could easily be more bacon in this dish, but when is that ever not the case?

Strange ratios aside, this pasta dish is super delicious. If you tossed in some rip red tomatoes, it would be the perfect ode to summer's bounty. It would probably look prettier that way too, as it's really not much of a looker!

For me, it wasn't such a bad dinner, between corn pesto puree and cream of mushroom soup. That doesn't mean I wasn't jealous of the rest of my family getting to eat the unadulterated dish! And don't even get me started on how I bummed I was that I had to skip the main event. Look at how beautiful these pork chops look! What ever happened to solidarity?


pork chops of unfairness

homemade chicken stock

mirepoix of food co-op carrots and red onion, and store bought celery

With all the soups I've been covering in light of my current diet, I figure a post on chicken stock is long overdue. This might be slightly crazy, but in the last year or so, I've been pretty much exclusively making my own stock from scratch. I am well aware that canned stock is one of the most universally accepted cooking short cuts available to the home chef, but I am pretty fully committed to homemade stock. It tastes better, for one, and as an added bonus it's not loaded up with sodium and other additives. The way I see it, if I'm going to be making a long simmered soup or luscious risotto, I'm putting a lot of time and love into that dish. Why would I want the base of all that to be some processed, watery stuff from a tin can?

Plus, stock is really easy to make. You have to chop up some veggies, but all the odds and ends can go right into the pot, which saves you time of peeling carrots. Also, you don't have to worry about things being cut evenly or whatever, since you're going to be cooking all this for a really long time and it will all inevitably turn to near-mush, even if some of it cooks slightly faster or slower.

To make chicken stock, you need only a few things: chicken bones, carrots, celery, herbs and water. Obviously the least straightforward ingredient is the chicken bones. The trick is to save the bones from another chicken dish, like a delicious roast chicken or even a rotisserie bird from the supermarket. Alternatively, you can be a bit more labor intensive about it...

One of my favorite dinners that I ate growing up was my mom's simple breaded and pan fried chicken cutlets. My mom would buy chicken breasts and bone them herself, cutting them into cutlets and whacking at them under wax paper until they were uniformly flat. The little chicken scraps became chicken nuggets, and the medium sized ones were chicken fingers. It was only upon watching Super Size Me that I even realized that fast food chicken nuggets, which were my go-to order on the rare occasions that friend's moms took me to McDonalds, were such a terrible Frankenstein food.

While boning a chicken breast is a little messy and can be tricky to manage for a first timer, these added steps do have their upside. Whole chicken breasts are generally cheaper than pre-butchered cutlets, and my mom claims to like the look of them better as well. I guess maybe the pre-cut cutlets have more surface area exposed to discolor or whatnot. Anyway. That's what my mom does, and now that's what I do too. And, like my mom, I too wrap up my chicken bones and freeze them for stock!

The one thing that is tricky about stock is that you need to have at least a couple of hours for it to cook, and ideally you'd want to keep your stock simmering for up to eight hours. These days, I generally content myself with 5 or 6, but I have made perfectly good stock in only two hours. The longer you cook your stock, the more concentrated the flavor becomes, so set aside as much time as you possibly can.

Once you've found the time to make stock, the rest is easy. You begin your stock with a classic French mirepoix: carrots, onions and celery. You can use all carrot and celery ends, and even the feathery carrot tops, since it will not be eaten. Though it's not strictly necessary, I like to brown them in butter or oil a bit before continuing. If I have carrot tops, I add them after this step.

Then I add my chicken bones. These can be cooked or raw, and you can even add them straight from the freezer. Then you fill the pot with water, and add your herbs, also called a bouquet garni. Generally this is comprised of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf, but I almost never have thyme and generally forget the bay leaf, so don't fret too much if you are short of herbs.


chicken bones and veggies

One thing you don't need to worry about is seasoning. Leave the salt and pepper to the eventual end product of soup or risotto. This broth will cook down and get reduced, and so if you add salt now, you run the risk of it getting overly concentrated and ruining your end dish. For now, just focus on steeping those bones and veggies.

Once the pot is full, bring the liquid up to a simmer. You don't want to boil your stock outright, or it will turn cloudy. Just let it simmer away for however many hours you have at your disposal. If the top starts to get scummy or foamy, just skim that right off with a spoon.

For the most part though, you can leave your pot alone. You can watch a movie, read a book, clean the bathroom, do your homework... I've even been known to run a quick errand or two, although you really shouldn't stray too far from the kitchen when the stove is on. Your active cook time is done, and all that's left for you to do is to strain out the solids in, oh, about 5 hours?

You can store the stock in the fridge for a couple of days, but if you aren't going to use it right away, freezing it is your best bet. If you like, you can put it in ice cube trays and then transfer those to a zip lock bag, so you have smaller portions around for when you only need a little bit of stock. Otherwise, a larger container will do, and you'll be set for your next big soup or stew.

If I haven't convinced you of the merits of homemade stock, I'd like to remind you of the saying "he comes from good stock." It means that a person's good qualities reflect well on their family and upbringing. Of course, there are exceptions, where people rise above humble beginnings, or fail to live up to the advantages afforded to them. Far be it for me to say that no one has ever made a crappy soup from homemade stock, or that you can't make a delicious soup from commercial stock in a pinch. That being said, I believe the maxim still applies. Dishes that are made from real homemade stock have an extra depth of flavor that can't be faked. If you take lots of shortcuts, you can taste them, just like you can tell when a well made soup comes from good stock.

So put on a pot of chicken stock after work, or on a Sunday when you're lounging around in pajamas. It takes very little active effort, but pays off with big flavor!