Blueberries and chocolate

Yes.

The other day while I was slowly chewing on a small square of an Endangered Species Chocolate Bar I spied a bowl of freshly-picked blueberries, grabbed a few and popped them in my mouth. The choco-blue combination was an unexpected party in my mouth. It was heavenly. I had to have another square with berries just to make sure. Yep. I've liked other chocolate-fruit combos before, like strawberry and orange, but I'd never experienced blueberry. And these blueberries were amazing. Just picked at a bucolic u-pick out in Hillsboro called Callaghan's. Sweet, plump, juicy...and then with that smooth, luscious chocolate...you know where I'm going here. It was that good. It was get-a-room-already good.

Coincidently I was recently introduced to recipes for both homemade chocolate sauce and blueberry sauce, so I had to whip them up to see how they'd taste together over ice cream. The chocolate sauce came from Heather who posted it on the Simple, Green, Frugal blog:

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used Dagoba)

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

splash of vanilla extract

Sift cocoa and sugar into saucepan, add water. Heat, whisking often until it comes to a boil. Let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Add vanilla, turn off heat and stir. Cool for a bit and bottle it up. Store in fridge and shake before each use.

It's not a thick sauce, like a certain syrup you might know, but it's really good. Especially in milk.

The blueberry sauce recipe came from my grandma's best friend, Annie, who served it when we visited them in Arkansas last month. She says it will keep for 3 weeks, so that should help you determine how much to make:

Take 2-4 cups of blueberries, put them in a sauce pan with lid over low heat. Stir occasionally, and in about 15 minutes they will begin to simmer and make their own juice. Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar (depending on your taste) and 1-2 Tbs. lemon juice. Simmer until sugar is dissolved well. Serve hot over waffles, etc. or cool and bottle and store in the fridge.

Yes.

The Oregonian's FOODday just ran a slightly similar blueberry syrup recipe, with added instructions for canning it.

While these sauces are both very, very good, I still prefer the straight chocolate-blueberry experience. But when ice cream is involved, well hey, you can't go wrong here.