Raspberry Heaven

Is there any fruit more divine than raspberries?

Maybe to you, but not to me. My mom has a large raspberry patch and raspberries are the reason I love the month of September. We are at the peak of the raspberry season and I am loving my life.

I picked this bowl today. There were a ton, especially considering the many berries that didn't make it in my bucket because I jammed right in my face.


We have used all the jars available on peach-raspberry jam, and I've been making all my recipes that call for raspberries. So now we are deciding what to do with them, because we will have this many or more again Monday that need to be picked. I wish Katherine was nearby so we could both binge on these together.

Here are the raspberry creations that are delish if you have access to a patch or if nothing else, celebrate September with a raspberry splurge!


#1 Pear Raspberry Clafouti
I used this recipe from Katherine and added the raspberries. I only made a half batch and ate it exclusively by myself pretty much.

















#2 Moist Chocolate Cake with all the fixings

This cake is awesome, you make it in a bundt pan and you can find the recipe here. I added a tsp of vanilla. We served it with vanilla bean ice cream, fresh raspberries, and raspberry syrup...I'm drooling onto my keyboard. I'm sure you can find a recipe for the raspberry syrup, basically boil water, sugar, and fruit and strain and enjoy!




#3 Lemon Raspberry Biscuits
This recipe is from another med-wife and you have to scroll down a ways to get the recipe. Once again, I substituted raspberries when it called for blueberries. These are good with blueberries too and Rhett loves them.























#4 Spinach Salad Loaded with Fresh Fruit



No recipe. Couple hand fulls of baby spinach, hand full of raspberries, cut up Gala apple, cut up Bartlet pear, hand full of Craisins, some slices of red onion.

We like it with Kraft's Creamy Poppy seed dressing

**This was especially great that night because the apple, pear and berries were all from my mom's garden right off the trees/patch. Yay for mom's that love to garden and let their bummy children move back in with them! More on that later....





#5 Cream Cheese Raspberry Muffins with Sweet Berry Drizzle




These are scrump (for the Seinfeld fans) and have wheat flour so not totally in the dessert category. I used lemon zest instead of orange. I skip the cream in the drizzle instructions and obviously switched the berries. Recipe here.









#6 Red Breakfast Risotto
I ate this too fast to get a picture. I've make it a couple times. Each time I only made half the recipe, used jasmine rice, and didn't have strawberries to top it with. I actually never had the cream on hand either and substituted the cream and some water for normal 2% milk. I had vanilla beans but they are too precious and took too much time to use on this. So here it is if you like warm, rice-puddingish goodness. I look back and realize I barely followed their recipe I guess and I loved it, I can only imagine it is better if you make it the correct way.



#7 Pear Raspberry Bread Pudding
Bread pudding sounded really good to me, and I don't have a website for this one. I read a lot of different recipes and mish-mashed what I like out of all of them. It tasted great to me. My sister said: "I hate soggy bread so I may have to throw this away" as I handed it to her. But she ate it, I guess it could have been to be polite...but wasn't that the point of the warning? So pretty much this is good despite any qualms about soggy bread apparently.

Pear Raspberry Bread Pudding

1/2 of a loaf French bread, cubed

2 c. half & half

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Combine sugar, cream, eggs and vanilla until sugar is dissolved. Plop bread chunks in to soak while you prepare the rest.

2 c. fresh raspberries

1 c. ripe pear, peeled, cored, cut in thin slices

1/2 c. sugar

1/4 c. melted butter

Mix these together. Grease a 2 qt casserole or 9x9 dish. Layer the bottom with the custard-soaked bread. Plop the fruit mixture on top, then distribute the remaining bread on top, pour any remaining custard/egg/cream juices on top. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes.

While baking make sauce:
1/2 c. evaporated milk

1/3 cube butter probably about 3 T

1/3 c. sugar

1/2 tsp..oh just go ahead and do a full 1 tsp vanilla

Cook over medium heat in saucepan until smooth and sugar is dissolved.

We served the bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream, but whip cream would be good too.

I have another stack of recipes to try for these raspberries...the majority are more desserts...like this one.