I truly, truly believe that stock is perhaps the most underrated cooking necessity on earth.

This is sad, because stock is painfully simple to make:

1. Cook any kind of meat with bones (chicken, turkey, ham, whatever).
2. Put the bones, skin, and leftover bits of flesh in a pot. Cover with water. Cook on low heat for several hours. If you are lazy, or don’t have time, however, you can start on medium high heat until the water is getting hot (don’t boil), then turn the heat to low and cook for an hour or so. It’s still going to be better than canned.
3. Pour your stock through a collander.
4. Make sure a bowl is under collandar–nothing is more unpleasant than watching your stock go down the drain. (I know this from personal experience.)
5. Let stock cool, pour into 1-quart freezer containers and freeze.

When you want stock for your soup, just pop one of those containers in the microwave for five minutes to loosen, then add the stock when the recipe calls for it. Don’t worry–with the heat and all, it WILL MELT. Very quickly. So quickly that if you’re not careful, you’ll end up with incidents like the Cauliflower Disaster below.

You will make all your friends jealous.