Weekend Recipes

This weekend I decided to enjoy and embrace the rainy weather and succumb to my lingering desires for fall comfort food.  Considering that it is still in the high 80s in Austin, we have a lot of warm weather left so the rain was the perfect excuse to try out a couple soup recipes, a pumpkin scone variation and an impromptu cookie batch.

The two soups that I made were both recipes from one of my favorite food blogs: Eat, Live, Run.  I am so happy that Alli introduced me to Jenna's lovely recipe collection!  On Friday I made Kale and White Bean Soup with Golden Beets and Spicy Sausage and it was soul satisfying-ly delicious, not to mention packed with so many good vitamins.  Saturday afternoon meant football, which obviously spells C-H-I-L-I in my book so I tried Creamy White Chicken Chili and was not disappointed! It reminded me of the chili that Greta would always have in her freezer, and now I have plenty in mine too :)

Now, I'm normally not one to bake but for some reason I just had a pumpkin itch that I had to scratch.  I had read on twitter or facebook or on a blog or on the internet about the combination of pumpkin, white chocolate and pecans...as a scone.  Immediately after reading I started googling recipes.  I traced back a recipe to We Heart Food blog for Pumpkin Scones, a la Starbucks.  Actually, now that I think about it, I've never even had a pumpkin scone from Starbucks but will have to look out for them in the future to accompany my Pumpkin Spice Lattes.  Long story short, making scones wasn't as hard as I thought, and I threw in a bar of roughly chopped white chocolate and fancy pecan pieces into the batter before rolling out.  I baked off a couple to try, and froze the rest for another chilly (or rainy) morning.  The scones were moist, well spiced and the white chocolate added the perfect amount of sweetness and the pecans a nice crunch.  I didn't ice mine, but probably will in the future (as in next weekend when I bake some for Luke and I to have with coffees). 

Last but not least, I received two jars of homemade raspberry jam from my mom last week and have been searching for applications to eat it because I can't stop! It is delicious.  Last night I just had to make a half-batch of Ina Garten's thumbprints and they were divine.  I left off the egg wash and coconut and just filled them with heaping spoonfuls of raspberry jam.  Yum.  Also, I have many in the freezer for future visitors, although I can't say how long the jam will last...

Coming soon: Texas Monthly BBQ Festival next weekend with Luke and a weekend in Portland, OR!

A Celebration of Southern Ingredients

This post's title comes from the tag line of Husk restaurant, one of the amazing spots Alli, Annie and I visited while spending Labor Day weekend in Charleston, South Carolina.  And what a celebration the weekend was!  From lounging on the beach, to hanging out at the pool, touring historic downtown, indulging in ice cream and playing beach volleyball it was certainly a good time and we were happy to be reunited for a bit!