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Homemade pasta.

Nice question, Producestories. I've promoted it to QotD. My answer: fresh mozzarella. It's actually quite easy, once you have a couple specialty ingredients (that can be had by mail-order) and can be made in about an hour (faster, with practice).

Vanilla.....it too is so easy to make, just some good vodka & good vanilla beans....and a nice dark, cool place to let it steep in! The quality is uncomparable!

Anything I make with a wok.

Energy bars. For some reason people think it's totally obsessive. But the storebought ones are too sweet (brown rice syrup is still SUGAR!), not to mention expensive. I make all different flavors: pumpkin spice, peanut butter and banana, oatmeal raisin. I experiment with wheat flour, oats, nut butters, dried fruits, fruit purees, flax seeds, stuff like that. It's no harder than making brownies.

Homeade bread always surprises people...surprises me all the time!

oh, and pizza crust. which is so easy, but people ask, "what's wrong with that boboli stuff, why dont you just use that?"

Homemade stock and bread. They are both so easy to do and yet everyone is wowed when we do it.

chicken stock, bread, granola and jam.

The stock and the granola I make myself because it's cheaper. The bread and the jam I make myself because it is better.

Definitely pizza crust. My grandmother taught me how and it's ridiculously easy.

People thinks it's way more work than it is. My brother's fiancee thinks I'm crazy (this comes from the girl who actually purchases pizza crust in a bag that you just add water to).

Fruit jam. But it is so fun and easy to do. And also relaxing...

Here is one of my recipes.

I would like to try making cheese too.

I make these wicked homemade rumballs that have a 26er of rum in them and all kinds of other yummy things. They cost a fortune to make and are time consuming. THAT surprises people. They wonder why I don't just buy them!

Lia B.: "I eat most of my meals out like a good New Yorker ..." Almost all of the native NYers I know (myself among them) cook a great deal more often than they eat out. It's the out of town high-rollers working on Wall Street who can afford it.
Pasta and liqueur are the two things that tend to surprise people the most.

BaHa, most New Yorkers aren't "native", and buying ingredients for just one person would cost me way more than walking two blocks and getting a lovely $4 gyro from a nice man who's been making them all his life. Eating out doesn't mean spending a lot of money!

BaHa: do you INFUSE you own liqueur or what?

Biscotti..I use a basic recipe and add different flavorings, nuts, coconut, etc. The recipe says "flavor improves with time". We don't know about that, they don't last that long. Elaine

a la mode--yes, infusing, in vodka. The quince liqueur is a particular source of pride.
And might I add to Lia that most NYers, are in fact native, if you count the outer boroughs, which I do!

Pizza dough, bread and a filipino sweetbread called ensaymada which can take an entire day

Tortillas- Corn tortillas. Also scones. But they're most impressed with the tortillas. I guess because it involves a gadget--a tortilla press--that most "regular" people don't own.

producestories, questions: do you notice much of a difference in your homemade yogurt? do you use a starter from grocery store yogurt? i think that it would be so great to try and make my own but I'm not sure if I should invest in a yogurt maker.

Performing a crowd of college students makes everything a suprise it seems.

Pickles, bbq sauce and I can tomatoes. People just say, "you what?"
My pickles are so much better than anything in a bottle. Fresh and with no preseratives other than salt.

Littlebluesiren: I did start with grocery store yogurt for the first batch, but for each subsequent batch, I have used some of the previous batch for starter. The texture of my homemade yogurt is less smooth, and a bit less "gelled," but the taste is comparable. (Though you do have to experiment with "incubation times" for your first few batches to get the tanginess level you prefer.)

It's true that you don't need a yogurt maker, but it does make things quite a bit easier than doing without, and as the one I bought was only about $20 (I found it on Amazon - it's the one-quart-container style, doesn't use a bunch of little glass jars), it's not a bad investment, especially as you can set it before going to bed and have yogurt the following morning.

Baha...filipino ensaymada is a brioche like sweetbread that is oddly topped with butter, queso de bolla (a filipino cheese similar to cheedar) and sugar. Sometimes it is filled with ube (purple yam) or macapuno ( sweetened shredded coconut). It is made with a lot of egg yolks, flour, sugar and a whole lot of butter and usually takes three risings to give it a fluffy and moist texture. Supposedly, it evolved from a Spanish bread similarly named Ensaimada. Similar to other members, I also grew up in a bakery think of it as a comfort food.

You can usually get them in filipino grocery stores-there are a good amount in queens.

ghee (clarified butter) - it's so easy and fast, and you can store it forever. the stuff in the jars is milky and never as pure as what you can make so easily at home.

An eclectic mix - yogurt, wine, granola, marshmallows and angel food cake have all gotten surprise reactions.

I have to agree with Christopher Balla, since I'm in college most people are shocked at anything home-made.

Soy sauce chicken (or duck, gizzards, etc)

Most folks go out to Chinatown to buy soy-sauce chicken but I make it at home. We have a vat of homemade sauce that's been unchanged for 4 years. The batch before stayed with us even longer but we had to dump it since we were moving.

Most of my friends are no longer surprised at anything I might make -- being a culinary student cuts back on that sort of reaction -- but I have gotten "Why would you make that?" reactions for making mayonnaise, alfredo sauce, sausage, Thai curry paste, pasta, and watermelon roses.

People always seem surprised by the things I make; lecithin spray, cheese whiz that I can use as a dog training inducement when they get sick of peanut butter, dog food, Frosty Paws, dog biscuits, yogurt, ice cream, fakin' bacon, instant cappacino mix, bagels, pita, crackers, Greek pitas, pretzels, spankopita, spring rolls, tortillas, salad dressings, marinades, speasoning mixes, popsicles, and baking mixes - don't get me started on the mixes!

I'll try to make anything we like to eat at least once!