Make This: Berry Compote

By Jen

One of my favorite things about living in the Pacific Northwest is seeing sane-looking people on the side of a highway picking (and eating) berries. Take a hike, and guaranteed you'll bump into an intrepid family of foragers, plastic bags on their arms, carefully plucking the ripe fruits from the brambly blackberry bushes that line the trails.

We're lucky (some might disagree) to have blackberry bushes right in our own backyard, and for a good month, toward the end of summer, we get while the gettin' is good. Blackberries for days.

But, what to do with all those blackberries? I love a good pie, but who has time to make pie? Instead, my go-to solution for an abundance of berries is to make compote. A compote is essentially fine puree of cooked fruit. You can use any sort of berry you might have on hand -- blueberries, raspberries, huckleberries -- and frozen or fresh, it's all the same. Which is to say, DELICIOUS.

Here's what you need:

1 cup berries
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon (about 1/4 cup of juice, 1-2 tbsp of zest)
1/4 cup water
Small saute pan

Add all ingredients to pan, and heat over medium until bubbly, frequently stirring until berries start to "pop." After a few minutes, turn down heat to medium-low, and let sauce simmer until it thickens to your liking. Remove from heat, cover with plastic, let cool in fridge. If you're not a fan of seeds, strain the puree while hot through a mesh strainer, pushing all the pulpy bits through the retain the chunkiness that defines a compote.

Serving suggestions:

• Atop pancakes, waffles or French toast
• On an English muffin
• Atop panna cotta, creme brulee or cheesecake
• Mixed in with plain or vanilla yogurt
• On vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt
• Right off the spoon!

With the holiday season right around the corner, you can also use fresh or frozen cranberries and substitute orange zest and juice for the lemon to make a cranberry sauce that will have you saying good bye to the canned stuff forever.

{Photo credit: me!}

Comments

[Kerri Anne]

YUM.

I love! berry-picking. Almost as much as I love berry-eating.