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Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones

This was the first meal we ate in our new apartment, about one month ago:

And the very first thing I baked in our new place? 

SCONES. Of course. Whole wheat raspberry ricotta scones.

I hadn’t even unpacked all the dishes into the cabinets, but managed to find my flours, pastry cutter, and baking sheet.

I only let myself bake off a few because I have been known to devour a whole batch of scones (equivalent to a stick of butter) entirely by myself. And even though we DID move an entire apartment worth of possessions and furniture from a 5th floor walk-up with just a subaru outback and our own hands, during which I most DFINITELY burned off more than a stick of butter’s worth of calories (yes, this is how my mind works), I convinced myself to exercise some restraint and freezed half the batch. The promise of freshly baked scones in the near future (without the prep time and clean-up!) somehow outweighed the desire to eat 9 scones.

But now that berry season has sadly passed (unless you want to shell out $5 for a tiny box of raspberries), I am even more glad that I decided not to eat the entire stick of butter that day, but rather, allowed myself the chance to enjoy a raspberry scone when raspberries cannot be found in any grocery store for ANY amount of money. Which is rapidly approaching faster than I’d like.

These scones are terrific, and whether you decide for yourself that you’d like to eat them all or save a few for later is really up to you. Whole wheat lends a certain heartiness that makes just one scone feel filling. The combination of the ricotta, butter, and heavy cream lends to a wonderfully moist crumb, almost calling into question the validity of calling this a “scone.” Unique to this particular recipe, the raspberries are cut in, like butter, which delivers various sizes of jammy berry pockets and streaks throughout the scone.

I’m still working on getting the hang of the lighting in the kitchen; the sunlight is significantly obstructed compared to the previous apartment. I brought my breakfast to the living room for some more natural light- and here’s a look at how our living room looked that first week. Unfortunately, not too much has changed in the last month in that corner of the living room!

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Where did the summer go?!

I’ve spent the better part of the summer months tackling a thesis and a defense, figuring out the next step post-PhD (a.k.a. finding a job), moving out of a 5th floor apartment (sans elevator service) into our first property without the aid of movers or even a moving truck, and discovering the joys of speeding in our new (to us) german driving machine. It has been an incredibly exhausting and stressful time, but, there were many celebrations, and I finally feel, for the first time maybe ever, that I am finally LIVING. Unfortunately, all the hubbub didn’t leave much time for cooking and blogging. oops.

The summer months are already behind us, and I feel a bit cheated in having missed out on trying new recipes with my favorite summer produce (farm-fresh tomatoes, zucchini blossoms, corn, stone fruits, and berries). However, after 6 years of living in New England, I FINALLY managed to organize a blueberry picking trip in late July! Although we arrived with the summer berries on the brain, it was a pleasant surprise to see that even though it wasn’t apple-picking season yet, there were still home-made, fresh, apple-cider donuts available!

A historical looking donut-making machine… I only had one question: where could I get one!?!?

And this is the hero who tossed freshly fried apple cider donuts into a bath of cinnamon and sugar… what an amazing job. Do they hire recent PhD graduates?

It was a lovely summer day for berry picking.

Although for Andreas, there were probably more blueberries that went straight into his mouth than into our picking containers. He defended his blueberry-picking technique, claiming it as a quality control measure.

We left the farm happy, with donuts and a few pounds of fresh plump blueberries in hand (and in our tummies!). You would think that with this bounty, I’d have a slew of blueberry recipes bookmarked away for just this opportunity… and I DID.. except by the time I had gotten around to picking a recipe, the blueberries were long gone! 

Kind of like the summer…. 

So before the rest of 2011 slips away without new recipes, I am jumping back into it and vow to be back with new recipes soon!

Fig Hazelnut Spread, Brie, and Prosciutto Panini

My thesis defense (a talk about the last 6 years of my life) date has shown up in the 10-day forecast. Does anyone else measure their life by the 10-day forecast? 

Upon this realization, the first thought that jumped into my mind was, “what am I going to WEAR?!”. And the second thought: “I guess I should start on my talk soon.” 

But before I start, I wanted to tell you about the only new recipe I tried while I was writing my thesis. I hadn’t been doing very much cooking, but after glimpsing Giada make this during a “writing break,” I immediately went out and bought ingredients!

It starts with a spread, made from toasted hazelnuts and dried figs, thick and slightly sweet, and you will just want to smear this on everything.

Thin slices of prosciutto are baked to a crisp (the original recipe calls for pancetta), and soft, creamy brie completes this delectable sandwich. I have a good feeling goat cheese would work just as well.

Got my fancy schmancy panini press and grilled the panini until the cheese gets nice and oozey.

Giada may have called this a breakfast panini, but this is really an ANYTIME panini.

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A little breather.

I feel like I have been running at break-neck speed non-stop for the last two and a half weeks, and only a few days ago did I finally get to stop and take a breath. After pouring all my energy and waking moments into making some sense of the last 6 years of research and trying to organize it into words and pictures to resemble a cohesive thesis, AND closing on our first property and taking a gazillion trips to home depot to ready it for its debut on craigslist, I spent the last few days post-thesis-turn-in recovering either breaking personal sleeping records or couch potato-ing it. After all THAT, it feels weird to wake up in the morning and not have to write 10 pages in the next few hours before going to our house to paint the living room. It feels weird to feel like I have the time to go to the grocery store and to think of what I want to eat, and even more strange to have the luxury of the time to cook whatever I want. It’s like I have to relearn how to be NOTat DEFCON 1 all the time. But, I have to admit, it feels AWESOME going to bed, knowing I am one day closer to getting the

P

h

D. 

Well, so long as nothing goes horribly wrong during the public defense and they don’t absolutely hate my thesis (knock on wood). For the first time, in a very very long time, I am totally excited about what the next few months will bring, even though there will be a lot of change, a lot of new things, and a lot of unknowns (like a J.O.B.), but that’s OK, I’m just beyond glad to see an end to the graduate school chapter of my life.

For now, I’m focusing on remembering that it’s SUMMER (before we slip into fall and then into the season who shall not be named). You would think that last week’s FIERCE heat would have been sufficient to remind me, but you would be surprised what you can ignore when all your faculties are focused on the computer screen(s) in front of you for 18 hours/day. Anyway, this means eating all the fresh summer fruit that I can, walking everywhere instead of taking the T, grilling, evening walks to get fresh peach ice cream, and hopefully, a trip to a pick-your-own-fruit farm this upcoming weekend!