So of the commercially available stocks, which are people's favorites?

I like Pacific Organic. I actually use their French Onion soup as stock a lot. It's vegetarian, but it's got a ton of flavor and works really well with chicken.

If I didn't have shows, I'd never know about DST.

Sorry, Zen, chicken stock. I don't have the disposable income for investment stocks, though that's what my 401K is mostly in, to my unease. My company's stock is fairly robust, but that's my retirement, and I like things a little less volatile.

Swanson's is easily available in my "Organic? Isn't that the specialty aisles over by produce?" grocery stores.

Here's my quick-n-easy & healthy homemade chicken soup: 1 lb chicken breast, 4 c. water - put that in a stock pot or large sauce pan. Add a couple of bouillon cubes or spoonsful of "Better Than Bouillon" concentrate (small jars on the grocery shelf next to the bouillon), sage or poultry seasoning, garlic, onion powder or dried minced onion, pepper, any other seasoning that smells good to me that day, pinch of cinnamon (no seriously, this is necessary, it creates an incomparable richness, I got it from my Mennonite Community Cookbook). When the chicken is cooked, I pull it out and cut it into small bite-sized pieces. Put that back in the pot, add 3-4 (or more, and include the leaves) chopped stalks of celery, throw in a bag of frozen mixed veggies and a half a bag of okra, plus a bag of any other veggies you want, or a couple cans of green beans, cook till the veggies are tender. When I feel like taking more time over it, I sautee an onion with the celery before tossing it into the pot, and slice up fresh carrots instead of relying on the carrots from the mixed veg. From there, it's easy enough to add some leftover rice, or some noodles, or make dumplings. Or just eat it with crackers. Of course, for one person, you'll end up eating off this pot of soup for a week. If you don't want that much leftover, try making this with a couple chicken breast tenders, and halve everything else.

I make my own stock, but the current knowledge from Serious Eats and Cooks Illustrated (my food bibles) seems to be that the Better than Bullion concentrated paste is a better option than other store bought stocks. Their praise has been quite effusive in fact, for all varieties. Just mix with water as instructed on the jar to create broth.

My favorite quick and easy chicken soup is Cooking Lights chicken orzo soup. [link] 20 minutes start to finish and delicious.

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I think Connie means soup stock, in which case I like Swanson's low sodium over most generic brands, although in my own cooking I tend to just use the TJs concentrated chicken broth, which I water down to 2 cu to one package instead of 1:1.

Same!

I've generally been disappointed in making my own broth for actual brothy soup (I somehow get the mix of flavors wrong, or I'm just too used to canned), but I still enjoy it as a cheap/competent thing.

I'll have to try Better that Bouillon, but my favorite boxed stock by far is Kitchen Basics (unsalted).

Oh! Anybody who wants to learn how to make soup stock from scratch, this book [link] Cooking With Scraps can teach you how. If you do Kindle, I can loan it to you.

Wakey

I had a dream that the characters from Empire were on the Great British Bake-off. Unfortunately I don't remember too much about it except waking up, thinking I needed to tell the Buffistas, and going back to sleep.