Tomato-Pesto Scones with Kalamata Olives

Did somebody say scones?

Count me in. In fact, it was a request from my wife to make the chicken noodle soup and herby scones and I made a few weeks ago.  I imagine that hasn't been evident to everybody. But I re-make dishes pretty often. If we like them, they're in the rotation. But obviously I'm not going to blog about the same dish again and again.  So believe me, I'm cooking more often than I'm blogging about it.

But thankfully I found another recipe for scones that sounded really good to me. When I asked The Mrs if she was OK with the substitute recipe, I got the green light to go ahead.

I had just been talking about how much I love Kalamata olives. They are so briny and delicious that if they're in a menu item description, there's a pretty good chance I'm ordering that dish. So this recipe had me excited.

It starts with another delicious ingredient. Take a packet of sun-dried tomatoes and soak them in hot water for 10 minutes. This recipe called for the dry packet, not the oil-packed kind of tomatoes.  I actually saved that savory tomato water and added it to the chicken soup stock. I though that was a pretty resourceful twist.

Next you'll assemble your dry ingredients. Take 2 cups of flour, a 0.5 oz envelope of pesto sauce mix, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 2 Tbsp baking powder and mix them together in a large bowl.

Then you will get your wet ingredients ready. Add 3/4 cup of milk and 1 egg yolk to another dish.  Mix them together well. It was at this point that my wife said "You're such a good baker."  She was referring to my discipline of separating dry from wet ingredients. I always thought that made sense, though, so you could evenly disperse the egg yolk. 

Cut in 1/4 cup of cold butter into your dry ingredients. You can do this with a mixer, or possibly even easier with a fork.  

Set two tomatoes aside. Chop the rest of the soaked tomatoes and 1/2 cup of pitted Kalamata olives. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir in the tomatoes & olives. Don't over-work the dough, though. Just get it combined.

Then flip it out onto a floured table surface. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Flour your hands and gently kneed the dough a little.  Then transfer it to the parchment paper and flatten it out to about 1/2" thick. If it sticks to your hands, just use a little more flour.  

Using a floured knife, cut diamond shapes across on a diagonal. Brush some olive oil on the top of the dough and then place the two reserved tomatoes in the center.  Bake them in a 425-degree oven for about 14 minutes.

When they're done, you can separate the scone by hand or with a spatula. The salty olives go great with the rich flavor of the sun-dried tomatoes. There's a lot of great seasoning from the pesto mix too. I love how buttery and rich they are, and these moist & dense scones are great for soaking up soup.

I also have an excellent use for the left-overs. So stay tuned.