Blackberries and Biscuits

Last Friday I took the day off work and made blackberries and biscuits for breakfast. I whipped up the biscuits using this lovely recipe from Holy Cow Vegan, then topped them with a warm blackberry sauce containing no added sugar.

The sauce got me feeling nostalgic. When I was little, Mom, Kris (my sister), and I would go blackberry picking in a vacant lot in our Tallahassee neighborhood. We’d ride our bikes there and fill old coffee cans with ripe berries, which grew wild in the sun.

The vacant lot was a sprawling, hot, brambly place, bordered on one side by a shady, quiet dirt road. The road and the lot were always deserted. Mom, Kris, and I would be the only people anywhere around. As we picked, we’d sing to scare the snakes away—”She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain,” “Goodnight, Irene,” and hymns we knew from church.

We weren’t supposed to eat the berries while we picked; we were supposed to save them for a pie. But I never had any self-control; I always ate a ton. Luckily Mom was really disciplined and good at picking (she grew up on a farm), so we ended up with plenty—at least one full coffee can. With the coffee cans perched in Mom’s bike basket, we’d ride back home. Then Mom would stir up some limeade to cool us off, and we’d start in on our baking. In addition to the big, main pie, we always made some little hand pies that Kris and I were allowed to eat right away, as soon as they came out of the oven. The hand pies were half-moon shaped and topped with glittering sugar.

Blackberry-picking days were some of the best days of my childhood summers, and eating blackberry-topped biscuits now, fifty years later, brought them back to life for me. Instead of having just one chilly Friday off of work, I felt like I was in the middle of a long, leisurely summer vacation.

Sugar-Free Vegan Blackberry Sauce

Ingredients:

16 ounces frozen blackberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon agave nectar, optional
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 cup water
1 tablespoon vegan butter, melted

Directions:

Place the blackberries in a saucepan, then add the lemon juice and agave nectar. Cook on medium heat for a couple of minutes. Mix the cornstarch and water together and add it to the blackberries. Simmer on low heat for about 8 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. At the very end, stir in the melted butter.