The Perfect Pantry®

Beef broth (Recipe: seven-spice udon noodle soup)

A reassuring thing to know about beef broth:

Store-bought beef broth is pretty good stuff, and that's great to know, because to make your own beef stock, you really have to commit an entire day of your life. Is there a difference between broth and stock? Actually, yes. Broth is made by simmering water with meat and/or vegetables; stock is made by simmering water with bones and vegetables. A really good umami-heavy beef broth starts with bones, browned in the oven along with root vegetables, then simmered for hours and strained and reduced and strained again. The gelatin in the bones gives stock a richer flavor, but in most cases, you can use broth and stock interchangeably. If you're using store-bought, taste before you add salt to the dish.

Preserved lemons (Recipe: slow cooker lentil and brown rice soup with preserved lemons and garlic sausage)

One important thing to know about preserved lemons:

A condiment used extensively in North African cuisine, preserved lemons don't taste like fresh lemons at all, and you really can't substitute one for the other. Preserved lemons, pickled in a salty brine, taste most like capers -- a mildly fruity and floral flavor that adds a surprising bite to soups and stews -- and you can slip them into dishes that usually call for capers. Best of all, It's incredibly easy to make them in your own kitchen. All you need are lemons, kosher salt, a glass jar, and a little bit of patience.

Homemade chicken stock (Recipe: smashed potato and leek soup with bacon and thyme)

Every week I make homemade chicken stock in my slow cooker, with the carcass of a rotisserie chicken or a chicken I've roasted at home.

It couldn't be easier: toss what's left of the chicken carcass into a four-quart slow cooker; add one onion, cut in half, skin and all; add one stalk of celery, with the leaves, and one carrot, cut in half; add a bay leaf and half a dozen peppercorns, and water. Set the cooker on high for three hours, or on low for six hours. Walk away, read a book, check your email, take a nap.

Done!

Strain the stock into a freezer-safe container, and let it cool to room temperature on the counter top. Then, store for up to one week in the refrigerator or six months in the freezer, and make soup to your heart's content.

Hot sauce (Recipe: watermelon gazpacho)

You know the saying, "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen."

In my kitchen, truer words were never spoken.

My husband Ted and I love the heat. Not the atmospheric kind that comes from the confluence of low ceilings, a large stove, and lots of track light, but the kind that comes from the inside out, the slow burn, the mouth scorching, the scalp-tingling kind that comes from hot sauce, hot peppers, and hot pepper flakes.

One whole shelf on my spice rack and one entire compartment in the refrigerator door are dedicated to heat.

This from a girl who used to be terrified of hot and spicy food. Who, honestly, had owned the same two-ounce bottle of Tabasco® for at least ten years and wasn't even close to using it up.