Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with Blackberry Pinot Noir Sauce

What could be more quintessentially Oregon than Pinot Noir and Blackberries?  Three Feathers Estate was once home to a blackberry farm and the land is still covered with wild blackberries in abundance.  I came up with this sauce when I was testing our 2017 grapes for ripeness and could not bear to just throw them away or give them to the chickens!

Blackberry Pinot Noir Sauce

Ingredients
2 cups of grapes, destemmed
2 cups fresh blackberries
2 cups sugar ( or 1 cup of sugar for each cup of juice)

Preparation
Cook blackberries and grapes over low heat, crushing fruit to render its juices.  Strain in a fine meshed wire sieve.  Add the sugar and stir to dissolve.  Cook until it is slightly thickened.  Let cool.
If cooked a little longer the mixture will set and become jelly.  Also very good, but takes patience and skill not to burn or overcook.

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with Blackberry Pinot Noir sauce

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

Eighteen handpicked farm fresh organic eggs of different colors.

1.5 cups of whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla

Preparation
Heat the milk, sugar and salt together until the sugar is dissolved.  Add the egg yolks, stir thoroughly, and heat slowly over low heat until the custard is thickened and coats a wooden spoon.  Set to cool.  Mix in the heavy cream and vanilla.  Put into an ice cream maker and churn.  When done freeze for several hours before serving.

Store bought ice cream would be wonderful as well but with our own eggs it was a perfect way to fill the demand for vanilla ice cream at a lower cost.

Serve ice cream with sauce and a few blackberries.

Christine Stimac holds a Buff Orpington chicken on her farm.