Love and Family
LOVE Fred and Laura Sutherland
GETAWAY Date ideas for this Valentine’s Day
JOY
Cold Creek Farm owners on finding love
January/February 2021
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January 1-31, 2021
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CONTENTS
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2021
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Fountain Food Adventures Local food reviews Dawson Faces Meet the Dawson County couple striving to make your wedding day perfect
Alexander Popp | Editor Dawson County News /dawsonnews @dawsoncountynews @dawsonnews
Manuscripts, artwork, photography, inquiries and submitted materials are welcome. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Metro Market Media Inc. Although every precaution is taken to ensure accuracy of published materials, Metro Market Media cannot be held responsible for opinions expressed or facts supplied by its authors. Dawson Living reserves the right to refuse advertisements for any reason. Acceptance of advertising does not mean or imply the services or product is endorsed or recommended by Dawson Living.
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Fred and Laura Sutherland Celebrating 59 years of marriage Dawson Spaces Date night ideas around town
When we think about the last year, which has really felt like an eternity, what things come to mind? Sadness, depression, uncertainty, sickness, death – these are all probably at the top of most people’s list. But as we planned and wrote this magazine, thinking about the year fading away in the rearview mirror, I personally could not stop thinking about the strength and resilience of love. We at the Dawson County News had a front-row seat to the devastation caused by COVID-19 and all the other challenges presented by 2020, but time and time again we found ourselves covering stories where individuals, couples, families, or the
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Dawson Reads Romance books for cold winter nights Dawson Eats Chicken broth and soup to fill your soul
community came together and faced problems together with love. So, for this issue of Dawson Living, we chose to highlight the different ways that love illuminates our community. From the love of good food driving David Fountain of Financial Consultants Group to try dozens of unique restaurants in the north Georgia area, to Cold Creek Farm, one of Dawsonville’s favorite wedding locals, and Fred and Laura Sutherland, a local couple that will soon celebrate their 59th wedding anniversary, love is in the air in Dawson County. Thanks for reading, Alexander Popp
EDITOR Alexander Popp
PHOTOGRAPHY Jacob Smith, Unsplash
PUBLISHER Stephanie Woody
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Erica Schmidt, Sudie Crouch, Jacob Smith, Jennifer Colosimo
ADVERTISING SALES Tim Anderson CREATIVE SERVICES Chelsea Sunshine, Magazine Design
DAWSON LIVING A Division of Dawson County News Dawsonville, GA A Metro Market Media Inc. property www.dawsonnews.com
January/February 2021
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S P O N S O R E D : F O U N TA I N F O O D A D V E N T U R E S
The Food Fountain Overfloweth (Again) LOCA L FOOD FA N R E TUR N S TO B OA S T TH E B E S T S By Jennifer Colosimo In 2019, the owner of Financial Consultants Group became our favorite kind of hero, because his method for training for a marathon made us all want to be runners … or at least his training buddies. With a lot of miles to cover, a carb-loading quest set him out on an adventure to find the best pizza in Forsyth County. Thanks to his tireless taste buds, we now have a vetted list of palatable pies around town, from deepdish Chicago style to traditional Italian and surprisingly delicious creative concoctions not even on the menu. He’s at it again; this year covering a lot of ground to deliver several bests that our culinary-gifted community serves. Better get hungry. “You certainly don’t need much of a reason to get excited about eating good food!” says David Fountain. “I love to uncover the best restaurants, and with the growth in our area there are so many new places to checkout. Food creates an excitement with great flavors and those you shared the experience with. The year 2020 has been tough for so many and we believe that food can be the reason for people to orderout or dine-in and be with family and friends — for conversation and creating memories, and even new traditions.” Fountain’s Food Adventures may not have a marathon to justify bites this year, but his motivation is just as important. Especially with the hit COVID delivered early last year to the restaurant industry, he’s hopeful that kicking off his fun food journey again this year might help local restaurants gain some traction while simultaneously giving people something to look forward to after being at home for so long. People gotta eat! “The number one goal is to uncover those gems that seem to be scattered
throughout our area,” he says. “Secondly is bringing good information to our readers to help create more business for the restaurants. Lastly is having fun, eating good food and meeting lots of great people. That area spans Forsyth, Dawson and Hall counties — three neighborhoods that Fountain loves. “Forsyth has been home for almost 15 years now and I have loved the family neighborhoods and caring community,” says Fountain. “It’s organizations like Browns Bridge Church, The Place of Forsyth and our school system that have helped to make our county so special — and continues to attract good people to move here from all over. “Gainesville provides that hometown feel from the locals with its charming downtown—not to mention being the chicken capital of the world is enough on its own,” he adds. “And Dawsonville, outside of the busy 400 corridor, is another locals’ community that is made up of good southern charm and a vibrant community.” Any vibrant community includes buzzing potential for creative culinary ventures — too many for one list — and these areas are exploding with talent,
creativity, and unique flavors. Fountain kicks off the year with a search for the best brunch, and his tongue-tantalizing trip will continue from there. “COVID does create some uncertainty and concerns, but we will be mindful of safety as we do our tasting and restaurant reviews, so when our readers are comfortable in venturing out, they will have a lot of great restaurants to visit.” Of course, if you remember the way Fountain described Forsyth’s Pizza Azzurri’s Dynamite Buffalo Chicken Napoleon in 2019, then you might just get inspired to try his nods to-go. That’s all Fountain could ask for — something that brings people together, no matter how differently they do it. “I love to see passion put into the quality of the ingredients and the results [that present themselves through] presentation and, most of all, the taste,” says Fountain. “This adventure has been a fun and rewarding obsession. The neatest thing is that food is a common language that everyone seems to speak. Like pizza, for example, who doesn’t love pizza??” He’s definitely speaking our language, and we can’t wait to start talking.
FO LLOW TH E ADVE NTUR E AT FO UNTA I N ’ S FOOD A DV E N T U R E S ON FACE BOOK A N D I N S TAGRA M S PO NS O R E D C O NTE NT P ROV I DE D BY F IN A N CI A L CON SU LTA N T S GROU P
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January/February 2021
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DAW S O N FAC E S
‘Opposites Attract’
HOW THE OWNERS OF COLD CREEK FARM FELL IN LOVE AND STARTED THEIR WEDDING VENUE
Top: Jeff and Susan Buffington pet one of their dogs as they sit in a pew at their outdoor ceremony space at Cold Creek Farm in Dawsonville. Photo by Jacob Smith. Bottom Left: Jeff and Susan Buffington at the altar of their impromptu wedding, held inside the Smith House in Dahlonega. Photo by Black Pine Photo. Bottom Right: Jeff and Susan Buffington pose next to a river in Glacier National Park in Montana for the wedding of Susan’s daughter. Photo by Brandy Sisson of River Side Photos.
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By Jacob Smith jsmith@dawsonnews.com Off of Shoal Creek Road in Dawson County, Cold Creek Farm has been transforming boyfriends into husbands and girlfriends to wives since 2013. Filled with cuddly farm animals and years of memories, Jeff and Susan Buffington were able to transform a barn and farmland into a beautiful wedding venue that sees scores of weddings each year. But even though Jeff and Susan hosted weddings for years as an unmarried couple, the road that took them to their own marriage was long, windy and full of surprises. In 2009, Jeff Buffington set up his account on match.com and scrolled across the account of Susan Carr. They met and enjoyed each other’s company enough to keep seeing each other. Both had been recently divorced and neither wanted to remarry anytime soon, so Jeff laid out a ‘five-year plan’ of how he would like to date someone five years before getting engaged. “At first, the five-year plan offended me,” Susan said. “But once the five years came around, it was me that didn’t see the rush in saying ‘I do.’” Susan was living in Dawsonville and Jeff was living in Woodstock when his house burned down in a freak accident. The fire prompted the two to move in together and together they began looking for farmland between Canton and Dawsonville to settle down.
DAW S O N FAC E S
“The first day, the realtor said he found some farmland in Dawsonville,” Jeff said. “We checked it out, hiked the property and knew this would be the place for us.” Two years after the conclusion of the ‘five-year plan,’ Jeff proposed during a show on a cruise ship without giving any sort of indication to Susan that it would happen. He had talked to the cruise director beforehand and set up front row seats where the spotlight would be on the both of them, something Susan said was not her style at all. “That is Jeff ’s style though,” Susan said. “He has always been outgoing.” Again, the couple felt no rush into getting married. Ten years into their engagement, Jeff and Susan invited their closest friends and family to the Smith House in Dahlonega for a New Year’s dinner. As their friend, who happened to be an ordained minister, told the dinner party to bow their heads in prayer, Jeff and Susan stood up to surprise the audience and make their life partnership official by becoming husband and wife. “Even after being committed to her for so long, the days after were different,” Jeff said. “Our bond was different and it’s hard to explain.” The Buffington’s wedding ceremony on Jan. 1, 2017 was to show the rest of their family that they were committed to one another, the couple said. Now, years after their marriage, Cold Creek Farm truly is a family affair. Together with four of Susan’s children and Jeff ’s children they run the venue as a family business. And not only does the couple work with each other every day, they also live full-time in the second story of the barn at Cold Creek. “Where I lack, she is strong,” Jeff said. “When I want everyone to be partying and having a good time, Susan understands that there are rules and regulations and parameters that our guests need to follow. She is such a hard worker.” Through arguments and tough days at work, in the end Susan and Jeff say they always come together and remember their journey to the current day. The highs and the lows roll along, but the two truly adopted the ‘opposites attract’ motto and learned that though they might disagree, things will always work out in the end. “Jeff is funny and at the end of the day, just makes me feel comfortable,” Susan said. “I could not see myself doing this with anyone else.”
Top: The outdoor ceremony space of Cold Creek Farm in Dawsonville. Bottom: A portion of the inside rehearsal space at Cold Creek Farm that has been decorated for the holidays. Photos by Jacob Smith.
January/February 2021
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THE SUTHERLANDS
Fred and Laura Sutherland: Local couple nears 59 years of marriage By Erica Schmidt eschmidt@dawsonnews.com When Fred and Laura Sutherland first met on Jan. 19, 1962, they were both engaged to be married to other people. The two talked for hours, and something just clicked. Less than three weeks later they were married. Now, almost over half a century later, the Dawson County couple are still happily married and are preparing
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to celebrate their 59th wedding anniversary. Laura Sutherland said that she first met her future husband when they were introduced by a friend. Laura was a clerk in the military and Fred was a military medical equipment repairman, and Laura’s friend introduced them in hopes that Laura could play matchmaker and set the friend up with Fred. “I was engaged at the time and so
was he, so my friend wanted me to talk him out of marrying the girl he was engaged to and into marrying her,” Laura Sutherland said. “So I got it half right!” Both Fred and Laura said that they just knew they were meant to be together, right from the moment they met. “We just both knew. I don’t know any other way to say it, but we just sat and talked for hours and we just both
knew that the other was the right person,” Laura Sutherland said. “We found we could talk about absolutely anything and that’s the secret; when you find somebody you can talk to about anything under the sun that’s the one.” The couple was married only 16 days after they first met, and despite being told by friends and family, including both their parents, that they wouldn’t stay together, their relationship lasted through thick and thin. “We have so much in common,” Laura Sutherland said. “We both have a sense of adventure when it comes to trying new foods, we both love to travel, we both have a sense of humor — there’s just a lot we have in common.” The couple, both of whom are originally from South Carolina, moved more than 30 times throughout their military careers and after they ended their service to the country. Laura Sutherland, lived her whole life in South Carolina until she met her husband, and said that she always wanted to see states outside of the south, which she considered an adventure. “After we got married and I started having children, I got out of the service and he stayed in, so a lot of our moves were while he was still in the service and a lot weren’t,” Laura Sutherland said. “He put in eight and a half years in the service, and we lived everywhere from Arizona to Alaska.” “And oh heavens it was an adventure!” she added. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter, and have lived in Dawsonville for the last four years. Both Fred and Laura Sutherland said that in their almost 59 years of marriage, they have discovered many secrets to having a successful and lasting relationship. “Communication is the main key; you just can’t have a good relationship, whether it’s a marriage or a friendship or a business relationship, without communication,” Laura Sutherland said. Another key to a long-lasting marriage, according to Fred Sutherland, is to commit to it no matter what happens. “Commit to make it work,” Fred Sutherland said. “There can be tough times, but that’s life, so going into it you have to commit.” Laura Sutherland said that every couple will have arguments, but that it’s also important to keep those arguments between the couple and to work through them together. “If something goes wrong don’t go running to mama and
daddy; it’s not their business,” Laura Sutherland said. “We’ve had times that we were so mad at each other we couldn’t see straight but had committed to being around other people and the other people never knew we were mad; we didn’t snap and snip at each other in front of other people cause that’s private.” Since moving to Dawson County, the Sutherlands have found several ways they like to spend their time together. “We like to get out in the mountains or go over to the lake; there’s a little park that we like to go to, take our old fashioned boombox with us, listen to music, read and play cards,” Laura Sutherland said. “Or we like to get with friends and play cards and board games — there’s a lot of things we like doing together.”
January/February 2021
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DAW S O N S PAC E S
Five romantic date ideas FOR VALENTINE’S DAY 2021
By Erica Schmidt eschmidt@dawsonnews.com With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, you’re probably looking for the perfect date or getaway idea for you and your sweetheart. The Dawson County area has a variety of fun activities to do with your special someone, from outdoor activities, unique restaurants and a close proximity to other cities and towns that would make a perfect day trip. Here are a few of our favorite ideas.
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a romantic dinner at The Blue Bicycle 2 Eat restaurant
Take an overnight trip to a treehouse Airbnb
Did you know that there’s an Airbnb in Dawson County that’s nestled in the treetops? That’s right, a tree house hotel right here in the Dawson County area. This romantic luxury treehouse has one king bedroom and a common area with a queen size sofa bed and would make the perfect destination for a weekend getaway. The treehouse has a full bathroom, living room, kitchenette with a microwave, toaster, sink and French press for coffee, and outside area with a picnic table, sitting area, grill, fire pit and pizza oven. It also has heat, air conditioning and running water Bed and Bough is in the middle of 5 acres of land and is
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close to both Dawsonville, Dahlonega and all the attractions both cities hold. The Bed and Bough owners have several other airbnb locations throughout Dawsonville and Dahlonega, and all of the locations can be found online at https://www.airbnb.com/users/56281008/listings. For more information on the Bed and Bough luxury treehouse airbnb, visit https://www.airbnb.com/ rooms/39249144?source_impression_id=p3_1607358077_ iPpKdL3S9ORogfYf.
January/February 2021
The Blue Bicycle is one of Dawsonville’s truly unique small town restaurants. The sit-down restaurant serves moderately priced, delicious meals and offers a variety of beer, wine and cocktail options. The restaurant’s menu blends French-style food with a southern flair that you can’t find anywhere else in the county. All of the meals at the Blue Bicycle are made with fresh ingredients and range from simple salads and soups to filets and seafood. Tucked away near the outlet mall in Dawson County, the Blue Bicycle can make a perfect date night restaurant. For more information on the Blue Bicycle including it’s menu and hours, visit https://bluebicycle.net/.
DAW S O N S PAC E S
3 Stay the night at Amicalola Falls Lodge
Another of Dawson County’s outdoor attractions is Amicalola Falls, which boasts a whole slew of hiking trails and outdoor adventures. You can hike, zipline, or participate in a variety of other activities like watching a Birds of Prey show. You can then stay the night at the Amicalola Falls Lodge, which boasts rooms with views, private cabins and a restaurant that offers a unique dining experience. For the truly adventurous couple, take the trail from the top of the falls up to the Len Foote Hike Inn, a back country inn only accessible via the hiking trail. The five-mile trail will take you past picturesque woodland views to the sprawling lodge where you can shower, eat delicious homemade meals and stay the night in the rustic bunkhouse. For more information on the Amicalola Falls Lodge, visit https://www.amicalolafallslodge.com/.
4 Take a day trip to Helen
If you’re in the mood for a fun day trip, yet another of North Georgia’s most unique towns is less
than an hour away from Dawsonville. Helen, Ga is a truly unique town which gives visitors a small taste of a German Bavarian Village. The cobblestone walkways wind through a town full of little shops, restaurants with delicious Alpine food and drinks, along with quaint hotels that can make the perfect day trip into a weekend getaway. While in Helen, you and your special someone can check out outdoor activities like mini golfing, zip lining, gem mining, tubing or riding the Georgia mountain roller coaster. Helen also offers a large variety of indoor activities, like escape rooms, a working candy factory, vineyards and wine-tasting, and a museum full of items from the time period of Gone With the Wind. For more information on Helen and all its attractions, visit https://www.helenga.org/.
5 Go on a picnic at Main Street Park
One of the many fun ways to spend time with your significant other in Dawson County is through the county’s dozens of outdoor attractions. The county is full of beautiful parks, including the City of Dawsonville’s newest addition, Main Street Park. Main Street Park offers walking trails and green spaces that make for the perfect picnic location. Take a walk through the picturesque park with your significant other and pack a picnic lunch or grab food from one of the city’s nearby local restaurants. While you’re at the park, you can also go visit nearby attractions like the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame or the Moonshine Distillery, or you can walk up into downtown Dawsonville and visit the little shops in town. For more information on Main Street Park, visit https://www.facebook.com/Main-Street-ParkDawsonville-100152951700664/.
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DAW S O N R E A D S
Romance Book Review By Sudie Crouch Lifestyle columnist Romance novels sometimes get a bad rap as not having enough ‘meat’ or substance to them. While there are some common themes, I have found that romance novels can tend to reflect a lot of those themes we see in our real lives -- they just may do it in a more interesting setting with more interesting characters! I am a sucker for a good romance novel. There is something comforting and soothing about seeing our heroine find love and having that happy ever after. So, I was excited to get to dig into some romances for this book review!
When We Believed in Mermaids, by Barbara O’Neal To be perfectly honest, I was surprised this book was considered a romance at first glance. It starts off with our protagonist, Kit, thinking she saw a glimpse of her sister, Josie, in a newsreel from a bar fire in New Zealand. Only thing is, her sister’s been dead for well over a decade -- or so she thought. At her mother’s urging, Kit flies from California to New Zealand in hopes of finding her sister. Even though this was a relatively quick read, it touched on some heavy topics and how the burden of carrying secrets can cause people to make some decisions and choices out of trauma. The chapters alternated between Kit and Josie/Mari’s perspectives, to give the readers the two different views of the story and allow us to know the characters outside of, yet within, the presence and existence of one another. While searching for her sister, Kit meets another
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traveler named Javier, who is in New Zealand under sad circumstances as well. As an ER doctor who has spent most of her adult life not letting anyone in, Kit finds herself slowly warming to Javier’s charm and passionate nature, but is resistant to admitting whether she thinks they will be more than a holiday romance. Javier is one to believe in love at first sight, whereas Kit logically holds to the knowledge they just met and live on two different continents and have only met on a third, making a relationship unlikely. An unlikely romance, but O’Neal was able to show us how love can help us heal some deep, painful scars.
A Christmas Surprise, by MJ Flournoy If you are anything like me, you get giddy when the Hallmark Channel airs their Christmas movies in July. So I am always excited about a romance novel set with Christmas as a backdrop. And this one is not only set at Christmas, but it features the local area of the North Georgia Mountains as its locale. The author, MJ Flournoy, is from Georgia, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to highlight a Georgia author! Our story opens with the very pregnant heroine, Julie, getting stranded in a snowstorm on one of our mountainy roads as she is trying to find the family of her love, Army Ranger Seth Turner. They had been corresponding while he was deployed until one day, her letters were returned undeliverable. Seeking answers, she heads to where she knows his family is, hoping to find out if he is okay or even alive. However, she didn’t expect to get stuck in the mountains in a snowstorm. After she realizes the road is impassable, she sets out on foot, hoping to find help only to be overcome by the snow and cold. Thankfully, Julie is rescued and by none other than Seth himself. Only one glitch -- he has no memory of her due to a horrible IED accident in Afghanistan that almost killed him and wiped out his short term memory. With the unrelenting snow and phones out, there is nothing for
Julie to do but stay at Seth’s cabin even though he doesn’t remember who she is. Even though this was a cozy romance, it touched on the impact of traumatic brain injuries and some of the after effects of being injured in war, two important topics. During the novella, Julie used cooking to try to help trigger some of Seth’s memories, and there is even a recipe featured in the back to try! What I found so enjoyable about both books was that they both drew the reader in from the beginning, and there was something relatable about both our heroines. In Mermaids, there was some moments that were a bit confusing -- the character of Dylan was mentioned early on but the book didn’t explain who he was until later and some of the jumping back and forth between Kit and Josie/ Mari was tedious at times. But otherwise, it was a good story. Personally, I did tend to enjoy Christmas more but it may have been because I do tend to prefer those cozy, sweet romances over the dramatic ones. What are you reading? I’d love to hear!
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Homemade chicken soup for sharing HOW TO MAKE AN EASY, FOOLPROOF CHICKEN BROTH AND SOUP FOR COLD WEATHER By Alexander Popp apopp@dawsonnews.com In the last few years, I don’t my family has used store-bought chicken broth more than a handful of times. It isn’t because we don’t use it, we go through gallons of the stuff during the winter and fall making soups and stews. It’s because we finally realized that with just a pound or two of chicken and vegetables, water and spices, you can fill your freezer every month with soups and a stock that we call “liquid gold”. The best part is that if you shop and eat right in the weeks leading up to making it, broths cost virtually nothing to make and can be altered in a variety of different ways. Pro tip: for the chicken in this recipe, I save and freeze the bones and carcasses of rotisserie chickens or bones from chicken thighs I roast. I do this for two reasons. One, it ensures that I use nearly everything from the chicken, and two, with rotisserie chickens the bones are already roasted and seasoned, adding a little extra flavor to the broth or stock. Get a plastic ziplock freezer bag and just get in the habit of throwing all of your bones into it in the freezer. If you eat like I do you should have enough bones for a good stock or broth within a few weeks. Homemade Chicken broth Ingredients • Approximately 3 pounds of chicken bones, skin, fat, gristle, it can all go in the pot • 4 stalks of celery cut into 2-inch pieces • 4 medium carrots cut into 2-inch pieces • 1 yellow onion, chopped with the skin still on • 6 cloves of garlic peeled and smashed • 1 small bunch of fresh parsley • Several healthy dashes of dried thyme
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• Kosher salt to taste • 4 quarts of cold water - adjust this if you add more chicken or if you want a thicker broth How to make it 1. Combine all your ingredients in a large stockpot. Bring to a boil over mediumhigh heat, then reduce heat until simmering. 2. Simmer partially covered on mediumlow heat for about 2 to 3 hours. 3. Strain the broth through a colander into a bowl or large pot, pressing the mass of solids with a wooden spoon or masher to extract as much of the liquid as possible. 4. At this point, you can either let the broth cool and place it in storage containers to use or freeze, or you can return it to a pot on the stove to add additional seasonings. Classic chicken noodle soup Now you have plenty of fresh broth, it’s time to make your soup. As I said before, this recipe can be altered any number of ways to fit your diet or preferences. But for this recipe, we are going to be making
a classic chicken noodle soup with celery, carrots, egg noodles and roasted chicken. Ingredients • 2 medium-sized roasted chicken breasts • 2 medium-sized carrots - sliced in thin rounds • 2 celery stalks - sliced into slightly thicker pieces than the carrots • 1 large onion - thickly chopped • Egg noodles • Fresh rosemary • 1 bay leaf • Salt and pepper • Chicken broth • Butter How to make it 1. Roast Chicken - I normally start this recipe out by roasting my chicken breasts in a cast iron dutch oven using some of my fresh rosemary, olive oil and whatever other spices sound good. But if you don’t have a dutch oven, feel free to roast them in a pan or on a baking sheet. Chop roughly after they are roasted. 2. Cook the mirepoix (a fancy word for
SAVE THE DATES! the vegetables that provide a base to your dish) - If you did use a dutch oven, remove your chicken and hopefully you’ll find a fantastic place to slowly sautee your onion, celery and carrots in a little olive oil. Once your onion, celery and carrots are softened, add in a little of your broth, and scrape the bottom of the pot to get all the good baked-on bits of chicken and spices. If you didn’t start with a dutch oven, just sautee the vegetables like normal. 3. Add in your chicken, broth and noodles - Toss the roasted chicken pieces and a healthy amount of uncooked egg noodles into the pot and stir, then add a generous amount of broth, fully covering the solid ingredients. Keep in mind that the egg noodles will expand as they cook, soaking up broth, so feel free to add additional broth as things cook if your soup is looking ingredient heavy. 4. Simmer and spice - Add a bay leaf and some fresh rosemary to the soup, and simmer until the egg noodles are cooked through. At this point, the soup is cooked, but you will need to season with salt and pepper to your own taste. I also like to add a little butter to the soup at the very end to give it a little creaminess, but this isn’t totally required. 5. Serve with some good bread, enjoy and refrigerate any leftovers!
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