One-Pot Meals

Traditional chowders all start off with a hearty soup base of onions and potatoes, and that makes a good soup just by itself. To this fragrant base you then add chunks of fish, or clams, or corn, or whatever else seems appropriate.

For beef, pork, lamb, venison, duck, dove, quail, or, yes, even a mixture of the above!

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.

Goulash may not sound flashy or stylish, but it offers lots of room for creative leftover cheating out of the vegetable crisper drawer or the freezer. Cheater beef chuck is the delicious traditional choice for goulash, but Ultimate Cheater Pulled Chicken (page 85) or Ultimate Cheater Pulled Pork (page 54) make a respectable soup. The secret to goulash is the combination of sweet slow-cooked caramelized onions with traditional pungent Hungarian paprika or a little Spanish smoked paprika. Keep most of the paprika on the sweet side, or the soup will go from zero to sixty too fast for tender palates. Serve with a loaf of good crusty bread.