Riesling Poached Pears

I'm passionate about food. If it were possible, my life would consist of nothing but traveling the world in hopes to try every possible preparation of every morsel of consumable fare the world has to offer...I will try anything once. Chef Duff Goldman (the guy from Ace of Cakes) said "I'd eat human, if it were cooked right". I absolutely agree. I'm not a picky eater. I just plain love food.

With that said, I've taken up baking and cooking in the last few years.  I grew up with an incredible cook for a mother. She and my dad have been married for 24 years and apparently she has only made one bad thing...Smoked Turkey Stirfry, which was before my time. Obviously, since I know about it, its still spoken of, and apparently it was atrocious, but props to her to trying something new! Apparently smoke and soy just aren't very complementary.  

I will definitely be sharing my musings regarding F&B (Food and Beverage for the non-foodies reading).  Recipes, great restaurants, great wine, great dishes, and the failures of each as well.

Today I will share a recipe win! On the scale of sheer simplicity and amazingness of this recipe I will rate it a 10. Right out of the gate...I'm starting big!

Ingredients

• 4 ripe pears, preferably Bosc, with stems, washed and dried
• 2 cups Riesling or other fruity white wine
• 1/4 cup honey
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 4 bay leaves
• 4 strips orange zest

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Cut a thin slice off the bottom of each pear, so they will stand upright. Arrange the pears in a 9- to 10-inch pie pan or similar baking dish. Whisk wine and honey in a medium bowl until well blended; pour over the pears. Add cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and orange zest to the wine mixture around the pears.
3. Roast the pears, basting every 15 minutes, until they are wrinkled and tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the type of pear used.
4. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the pears to shallow dessert bowls. Pour the wine mixture into a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Boil until slightly thickened, about 6 minutes. Drizzle over the pears and garnish with the cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and orange zest. Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled.

These were ah-may-ziiing! I only made two, so I cut the recipe in half, and used ground cinnamon because I didn't think I had sticks (I did...fail), but they were delicious. The only trouble I ran in to with "halfing" the recipe was the liquid dried up toward the end, so I wasn't able to make the final sauce. At about 40 minutes, I did pour some more Riesling in the dish (and my glass) so it wouldn't burn.  I used a 8x8 glass pan, so in the future I'll probably use something smaller, so it doesn't dry up as easily. We had it with vanilla ice cream and it was absolutely delicious. I love hot-cold combos, so this was definitely perfect for me. Just be careful, they're super, super hot when they come out of the oven. Letting them sit for a bit wouldn't hurt...I just couldn't wait.