Ina Garten's Raspberry Sauce

I have been a fan of Ina Garten, (the Barefoot Contessa), and her recipes for a long time.  Her Raspberry sauce recipe has become one of our favorites to serve with vanilla ice cream and with chocolate ice cream with a bit of whipped cream. (you can also serve the ice cream in a meringue and top with raspberry sauce or use the sauce with her coeur a la creme!

The only draw back to some of her recipes is that they are meant for serving a crowd.  I tend to cut her recipes in 1/2 or in 1/4's, as some of my family members have flown the nest,  or freeze the remainder of the dish for menu plans in the future.

This recipe can be seen on Food Networks page http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/raspberry-sauce-recipe2/index.html

take 1/2 a pint of fresh clean raspberries, 1/2 cup of sugar, and a 1/4 cup of water and place in a small sauce pan.  Bring to a boil, and reduce the heat to where the sauce can simmer about 4 minutes.  Turn off and set aside.  

Take 1 cup seedless raspberry jam*, 1 Tablespoon framboise liqueur, and the cooked raspberry mixture listed above and place in a food processor and blend until smooth (use metal blade).  If you don't have a processor, you can mix the sauce very well with a whisk.  

Put in clean container (as I used a mason jar - I washed the mason jar with hot water and put clean hot water in the jar until ready to use; then empty the jar of water and dry a bit and immediately place the sauce in the jar leaving 1" space before putting the lid on.  

*Please note:  as I couldn't find seedless jam and I don't like the seeds from the raspberries in Ina's sauce I cook the sauce as recommended and then strain it through a sieve constantly turning until most of the sauce is out - I scrape the bottom under neath the sauce with my finger to get that last drip of her amazing sauce. Toss out the seeds from inside the sieve. 

I served this with Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream and a few raspberries 

Strawberry sauce I made strawberry sauce because we had 2 lbs of strawberries that  weren't sweet like the strawberries yet to come this season: 

2lbs strawberries greens cut off 

1/2 cup sugar 

1/3cup water 

bring to boil and reduce until bubbly and thicker (I cooked it on low for 15 minutes... it might be ready in 10 minutes)

then add 1-1/2 tablespoon of grand mariner or other orange  liqueur and blend (but keeping some strawberry pieces semi intact. cool and refridgerate until ready to use.