I've partnered with wearFIGS for this awesome giveaway! One lucky winner will get a set of scrubs or medical outerwear. Get it for family/friends/yourself - no better way to show love and appreciation for those in the medical field saving lives and helping patients. Because after 28 hr call, you just want to be in pajamas :)
I started off 2nd year with the emergency room. Since I ended the last 2 weeks of intern year on VA nights, this means I basically spent 1 month in scrubs.
![Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder]( "Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder")
Being a second year in the emergency room is way better than starting off as a brand new intern because I actually know how to order things, and you get to see more complex patients.
It's weird saying I'm a 2nd year. An ob-gyn consult for a vaginal bleed literally asked if I was really an intern since I seemed to know a lot for a July intern ("um, just so you know, your signature says you're a 1st year still.") Whoops - gotta change my signature.
![Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder]( "Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder")
![Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder]( "Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder")
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![Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder]( "Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey | Obsessive Cooking Disorder")
Ingredients
GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
CHEESECAKE
1 8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups whole milk ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon cornstarch
TOPPING
sliced fresh figs
1/4 cup toasted pistachios
honey, to drizzle
Directions
CRUST: Preheat the oven to 350°.
Crush the graham crackers in a food processor until finely ground. Mix the graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon together in medium bowl until combined. Press onto the bottom of your spring form pan to make a thick crust (I used a 6 inch). Bake for about 8 min, until golden brown. Set aside to cool.
CHEESECAKE: In a large bowl with an electric eggbeater, beat the cream cheese, ricotta, and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add your eggs and beat to fully mix. Add lemon juice and cornstarch and mix until combined.
Pour the batter over top of the crust. (Optional: make a water bath by placing the springform inside a baking pan filled without 1 inch of water so the cheesecake bakes evenly to avoid cracks in your cheesecake.) Bake for 40 minutes or until the center is slightly loose.
TOPPING: Cool to room temperature on a rack and then cool completely into the refrigerator. Garnish the top of the cheesecake with fresh sliced figs, toasted pistachios, and honey.![]()
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I started off 2nd year with the emergency room. Since I ended the last 2 weeks of intern year on VA nights, this means I basically spent 1 month in scrubs.
It's weird saying I'm a 2nd year. An ob-gyn consult for a vaginal bleed literally asked if I was really an intern since I seemed to know a lot for a July intern ("um, just so you know, your signature says you're a 1st year still.") Whoops - gotta change my signature.
I am not and never will be an emergency room person - if you like a fast pace, tons of action, seeing people quickly then sending them inpatient or home, and making up the plan as you go, then emergency medicine is for you.
I prefer to have time to sit and think, round for hours in my patients, deliberate on plans, see the same patients day after day, and write super long notes - hence I'm too "internal medicine."
The upside about ER though is not ever worrying about what to wear. Scrubs, scrubs, scrubs, vests, jackets, scrubs is your uniform.
Scrubs look great if you're muscular, 6 ft 2 in, and fit in them like B. They don't look great when you're 5ft and petite and swimming in them. Especially when I wear my Texas county hospital scrubs (where an XS there somehow = women's size L for tall people), and I have to roll the waist four times over.
So while B looks like a surgery attending, I look like a high school kid wearing clothes 2x too big (which doesn't instill a lot of confidence when you have a huge 300 lb aggressive male patient with alcohol and drug intoxication in the ER).
Luckily that's what wearFIGs is here to fix. I'm loving the women's vest from them - it's versatile enough for when I wear scrubs on 28 hr call / night shifts (plus it's fitted so you can see I do have a waist), yet stylish enough that I can pair it with my Internal Medicine work clothes for daytime. It's thin, light, and has 5 pockets to hold all my patient's notes.
Anywhere I'm sharing this wonderful cheesecake I made for an "after 4th of July" party (since I had to work the A side/trauma side 4th of July night!) and to celebrate finishing the ER forever (whoohoo!). It's an Italian ricotta cheesecake adapted from Billy Parisi, topped with delicious honey and figs. It's easy to make and super classy!
GIVEAWAY: wearFIGS and I have partnered up to for an amazing raffle - one lucky winner will get a set of scrubs or outerwear (any gender)! You just need a shipping address in the US.
To enter
- Leave a comment on what wearFIGS item you love (or your favorite figs recipe for non-medical folks) for an entry - log in as google for your comments so I can email you if you win
AND/OR
- On instagram: follow @obsessivecooking and @wearfigs and comment on the giveaway post for an entry (tag friends for an extra entry!)
Giveaway ends July 24th, 2017 midnight - winner will be chosen randomly! Best of luck to all!
Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Figs and Honey
GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
CHEESECAKE
1 8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups whole milk ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon cornstarch
TOPPING
sliced fresh figs
1/4 cup toasted pistachios
honey, to drizzle
Directions
CRUST: Preheat the oven to 350°.
Crush the graham crackers in a food processor until finely ground. Mix the graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon together in medium bowl until combined. Press onto the bottom of your spring form pan to make a thick crust (I used a 6 inch). Bake for about 8 min, until golden brown. Set aside to cool.
CHEESECAKE: In a large bowl with an electric eggbeater, beat the cream cheese, ricotta, and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add your eggs and beat to fully mix. Add lemon juice and cornstarch and mix until combined.
Pour the batter over top of the crust. (Optional: make a water bath by placing the springform inside a baking pan filled without 1 inch of water so the cheesecake bakes evenly to avoid cracks in your cheesecake.) Bake for 40 minutes or until the center is slightly loose.
TOPPING: Cool to room temperature on a rack and then cool completely into the refrigerator. Garnish the top of the cheesecake with fresh sliced figs, toasted pistachios, and honey.
![Chad Lawson – Awakening: The Stillness Within (2026) [FLAC 24bit/48kHz]](http://imghd.xyz/images/2026/05/09/x5d03jw9bi367_600.jpg)
