Last but not least - Red Wine Berries for Dessert!

Despite the fact that it's not quite berry season yet, I had quite a bit on hand and they were good. Not too sour or sweet, and a good price at the grocery store! I thought that making a dessert with berries might be a little healthier and a nice light end to our rich meal. I also had ricotta I wanted to use and seemed to remember seeing berries and ricotta put together before.

Macerated Red Wine Berries with a Ricotta Marscapone Dollop

2-3 cups of mixed berries                                   1/2 cup part skim ricotta

1 TB orange juice                                                2 TB marscapone cheese

1/2 cup red wine (I used a pinot noir)                    2 TB confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar                         1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 TB orange juice                                                 Sprinkle of cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Rinse all of your berries and slice any that need to be cut into smaller pieces (for ex. whole strawberries should be sliced). Put them into a large mixing bowl and mix with the first of the TB of orange juice. You can do this ahead of time if you know you'll be in a time crunch later.

2. In a small sauce pan mix together the red wine and brown sugar over low heat. Stir together until the sugar is completely dissolved and the liquid starts to thicken. You can also add the second TB of orange juice and the cinnamon into the sauce pan and mix together. Let the sauce thicken over low heat until it resembles a thin, light syrup.

3. Add the red wine syrup to the berries and stir to coat. It's good to do this well in advance because the berries will soak in the red wine mixture and really soak up all the flavors of the red wine and brown sugar syrup. Put the bowl of berries in the fridge and let soak up for about an hour, stirring occasionally so that the berries on the bottom aren't the only ones soaking.

4. In a food processor you'll add the rest of the ingredients - the ricotta, marscapone, confectioners' sugar, vanilla and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Blend together until all of the ingredients seemed mixed together well, but be careful not to over mix.

5. Serve the berries in a bowl (I didn't listen to my own directions!) and top with a dollop of the ricotta marscapone mixture. Sprinkle with some of the ground cinnamon, which makes it look nicely plated.






I must also make a note that my friend brought this fantastic new treat for dessert that I hope can grace my blog sometime soon: Raw Vegan Cookie Dough Balls. Don't knock it 'til you try it, is definitely the correct theme here. They really did taste like cookie dough and who doesn't love eating the cookie batter before you bake your cookies?! Now you can without the guilt of knowing that there are raw eggs and you really shouldn't be eating the dough. I vaguely remember there were ground cashews, chocolate chunks, maple syrup, flour and some other ingredients I can't remember. Delicious.