Playing at the Park

It has begun to rain here in Portland.  Summer was wonderful and the sun was amazing, but nothing really beats the fall.  I love fall!  You get to eat soup all the time, wear boots, jackets, sweaters, scarves, eat pumpkin desserts, apple desserts, etc...I think you get the picture.  However, with the frequent rain it also is the season to rush outside whenever the sun is out because you don't know when your next chance will be.  So we ran to the park on a recent sunny afternoon. It's really just an ordinary experience, but I always bring my camera.  You never know what kinda cute park pics you will get. 

So Maia finally got a friend to play with her after going around the playground asking other kids if they would be her friend.  This little boy was playing all by himself when Maia approached him and then they were best friends.  They held hands constantly all over the playground for the next 25 minutes.  It was pretty cute.  Maybe Maia dragged him around a little, but he cried when she went to the bathroom so he must have enjoyed it too.  Here are some sweet pics of friends playing on the playground: 

Miller's Test Kitchen: Raspberry scones

Lately I have been reading Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country all part of America's Test kitchen and have been feeling a little inspired.  More inspired to test and recreate yummy things.  My things are not very gourmet, but its fun. So today I craved scones.  There is a coffee shop a few blocks away called Crema and I really love their scones.  When I want a scone I want to go there.  They have such an excellent texture, and often they are dolloped with some sort of deliciousness.  So I decided I should make my own yummy scones.  I often opt for a chocolate chip scone, but today I did something different.  My sou chef (Maia) and I used a scone recipe that I often use and adapted it to what I had on hand(it calls for sour cream, but I had whipping cream that sort of thing).  I then cut them into triangles and pressed a little circle indent.  I grabbed raspberry jam that I had made this summer with the abundance of raspberries I picked and proceeded to put a little dollop in each scone.

When they were done. Whallah!  Beautiful raspberry scones.









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 The taste panel was speechless. 

(Here is the scone recipe I used:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/simple-scones/detail.aspx)