Berry tasty

I'm not sure why Harris Teeter had blueberries ridiculously on sale, but when I saw the "2 for this!!" sign, I knew they had me. First, allow me to giggle at the name of this grocery store. My sister happens to shop at one in North Carolina, and when she first told me the name, I busted out laughing. I'm not sure why. I just picture a little old man in a bow-tie, possibly playing on a teeter-totter. I digress. Now, what does one person need with all of these blueberries? It just so happens that in a quest to discover uses for this delectable little fruit, I happened to come across a kinda amazing recipe for blueberry sauce that has happily broadened my breakfast and dessert choices. I love this sauce so much I may start putting it on things you wouldn't ordinarily think of as accompanied by a blueberry sauce....like....steak. Blueberry-glazed steak! Ok, maybe not.

Sunday morning. Time for real breakfast, not just the usual weekday bowl of cereal. In order to accomplish "real breakfast," a couple of changes to that particular recipe were in order....not because I thought I could really improve on it, but because my kitchen was a little lacking in ingredients. I didn't actually have cornstarch on hand (drat!), so I opted to use flour as a back-up thickening agent. I fell victim to one of my more frequent cooking mistakes - flour lumps in the sauce! Paula Deen fixes this by mashing together the flour with some butter (what else?) before adding to the sauce, but I was trying to keep the butter intake down. Lesson learned - just use the butter. Determined not to let it ruin my brunch (this was going to be breakfast, but you know how my sleep schedule goes....we have shifted into the brunch realm by this point), I fished out those flour lumps and soldiered on. As a side note, the flour lumps were actually kinda tasty. Yes, I popped one in my mouth; I was getting really hungry. Sorta like a little blueberry dumpling. Yummy culinary mistake! Anyway, solution to the flour lump incident? Let that mixture sit there on low and simmer away....reduce, reduce, reduce. Anything will thicken if you cook it long enough!

Also didn't have any almond extract hanging around, but did have amaretto liqueur....ha, that's even better! Added just a splash at the end. Mmmmm.

This happened to be incredibly delicious on top of the ricotta pancakes I made, and it was still incredibly delicious later that night when, wanting more more more, I reheated and poured a generous amount over a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream. I wish the ice cream had been Blue Bell, but alas, with my current geography, Breyer's had to do. Blue Bell will ship me four half-gallons for only $119, but I think I'll pass on that particular deal.

My ricotta pancakes weren't nearly as photo-worthy as the ones pictured with the recipe, and I was too involved with eating the blueberry sauce to take its picture....so you'll just have to imagine the beauty of this culinary adventure. I love cooking and trying new things. Bring it, grocery store! Tempt me with bargains, and I will attempt to turn them into tasty things! Actually, as my dear sister pointed out, perhaps I should just buy what I actually need when I can still get the reduced price for purchasing a smaller quantity. I admire her logic and restraint. Stop trying to trick me, Harris Teeter!