Blueberry Fig Sauce

I had a house full of extra fruit on the verge of going bad so I thought it wise to use it up in a sauce. In general, this is a great way to use up old fruit. Cooking it down into a sauce to spoon over or add into a basic sweet cream or vanilla ice cream base is a great way to not waste food. It would certainly make your mother and all those starving kids in Africa very happy to know you didn't waste your fruit.

I always find it difficult to specify the amount of sugar you should use. Your fruit may be more or less sweet than mine. In my case, I used a little more than 1/4 cup of sugar. The figs were ripe, but the blueberries were a bit tart. My only comment is that between the maple syrup and the sweetness of the fruit, you should be careful not to over sweeten the sauce with sugar. You can always taste and add more sugar in after a while if it is not sweet enough. Use extra fine sugar and stir it into the still warm sauce, or rewarm the sauce to incorporate the sugar.

I think this will be great either swirled into or served warm over vanilla ice cream. If you cook it a little longer you can cook down into fresh jam.

Blueberry Fig Sauce:

1 pint fresh blueberries
16 ounces fresh figs (I used both green and mission varieties)
8 ounces maple syrup
Sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
Pinch of salt

1. Depending on their size, halve or quarter the figs.


2. Put all the ingredients into a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, until the blueberries are practically melted into nothing.


3. Remove from the heat, cool to room temperature, then refrigerate.