Poultry

(Can be prepared ahead of time.)

Broths are easy and rewarding, since homemade broth is always better than canned. You’ll use it constantly-even in place of some of the water in the recipe above to cook beans. Make a big batch when you have time and freeze measured portions in heavy-duty plastic freezer storage bags. With slight variations, this simple formula will work for chicken, beef, or fish broth. You can often get the needed bones or carcasses from your butcher or fish market. If you need to substitute canned broth for homemade, use one 14 1/2-ounce can for every 1 3/4 cups broth.

R. B. has discovered from his guitar teacher, Wayne Avers, that playing music is a lot like cooking. A solid background in fundamental scales and chords is the key ingredient for intuitive playing. As with cooking, the more you can take advantage of a basic, well-stocked pantry, the better prepared you are for cooking on the fly. For tortilla soup, a regular two-timing favorite, we have on hand onions, potatoes, celery, and carrots and cans of tomatoes, beans, and broth. With these ingredients, some seasonings, and some cheater meat, you’ve got dinner. Go lighter on the chipotle peppers for a milder flavor.

Ranch Style® Beans are Min’s number one foolproof side dish for instant satisfaction every time. She says that if Andy Warhol had been a Texan, the Ranch Style® Beans can would hang in museums throughout the world. The chili pintos’ unmistakable label dressed in basic black with bright white Western lettering and yellow and red accents is as common a sight in Southwestern pantries as Campbell’s tomato soup ever was. These well-seasoned beans make an “appetite pleasin’” homey cornbread casserole with any leftover cheater meat.

No matter how much you like to cook, everyone gets stuck in a rut. When you find yourself making the same old things, it’s time to cook out of your comfort zone. For us, this means a trip to any international market where one step inside we remember how much there still is to learn. The good news is that walking the aisles of the unfamiliar unlocks the secrets to many of the ingredients in our favorite restaurant dishes. The greens in the produce section alone will keep us busy for a year. We can’t shop when we’re hungry, so first we eat. Thankfully, the Vietnamese noodle bowls right next door energize and inspire our international shopping trips. Vietnamese noodle bowls are filled with contradictions in complete agreement—hot and cold, crunchy and soft, sweet and sour, rich and light. The bowls of warm thin noodles, cool leafy lettuce, bean sprouts, and herbs topped with any meat or seafood you like are perfect for leftover cheater meat. The sweet/salty/spicy dressing may appear way too complex for home cooking. It’s not. The international market has everything you need. Cooking out of your comfort zone will help you dissect the components and flavors of unfamiliar foods. Even if cooking Vietnamese at home sounds daunting, give this a try with leftover cheater meat just for the fun of better understanding how opposites get along.