Like many home cooks, I use the leftover chicken carcass to make stock. Every now and then, though, you need stock and have no leftover roast chicken. The secret to quick, flavorful stock was so easy, yet I needed Jenny Linford, author of From My Mother's Kitchen, to point it out: brown the chicken first to add a depth of flavor. I used her base technique with a few changes. The two major ones being I used chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken for more flavor and less money at the market, and went one step further and also sauteed the vegetables to coax more flavor than simply simmering them in water would. Linford used thyme in her stock, but I prefer the more traditional tastes of parsley and bay leaf, and while I love leeks, regular yellow onions are less expensive. Guess you can say this is a thrifty woman's version of her recipe, but you'd ever know from the rich flavor.

Though a chicken cutlet may be a chicken breast cut in half, this recipe shows how to make chicken cutlets with double the deliciousness. A jar of sun-dried tomatoes does double duty for this healthy dinner idea. The flavorful oil they're packed in is used to sauté the chicken, and the tomatoes go into the cream sauce.

A simple, flavorful tomato sauce recipe perfect for homemade pizzas.