Poached Pears in Moscato and Port

Poached pears with a dollop of ice cream is the older child's recent favorite dessert. Being a dessert-o-phile, she enjoys a variety of fruit pies and cobblers rather than cakes and cheesecakes and other decadent sweets. And, not being a dessert fan, I rarely make desserts unless there is an occasion to celebrate or the older child talks me into it.

Nothing out-of-the-ordinary about these poached pears. I made one batch with super sweet Moscato wine and another batch with Port for the rich red color. And, when I thickened the Port sauce, I also mashed in some frozen strawberries that we had picked and saved earlier in summer.

Combine the wine, some water, sugar, vanilla in a sauce pan, place the peeled pears in it cover and simmer till pears are a bit tender yet firm. Remove the pears and continue to thicken the liquid in the saucepan to a syrup.

Drizzle warm syrup on the poached pears and serve with some vanilla ice cream.

Pear Apple Sauce

Not a fancy recipe, just a plain old staple with my signature fusion of organic home-garden fruits - viz., apples and two varieties of pears.

We had a lot of apples and pears and plums from our garden this year. Usually, the trees skip a year or two bearing bountiful fruits only once in 2 years or so. This was one of those good years.

As we don't use any pesticides or chemical synthetic fertilizers, the worms and bugs get to the fruits often unless we are vigilant. Plums seem immune from any infestation so far.

After canning about half a dozen pint jars of Apple Plum Butter, I still had enough apples leftover to make something else.

We had very few traditional pears - the kind that kids loved eating off the tree for a snack. But, there were plenty of Asian Pears. (Also susceptible to bugs.)

And that's how this Pear Apple Sauce came about: After cutting and discarding worm-eaten fruits, there was enough pears and apples to make about 2 half gallon jars and 2 pint jars of Pear Apple Sauce.

Simply chop the fruits coarsely (skin and all), cook in just enough water to soften them. Puree in batches. Return to boil. Keep simmering while canning as usual in a Boiling Water Bath.

I added a hint of cinnamon and some Agave nectar as I had splashed some lemon juice on the cut fruits to keep them from browning too much. If it is too tart, the kids don't prefer it, but I didn't want to use any sugar.

Just 4 simple ingredients (two is probably all the is traditionally used): fruits, water, cinnamon, agave nectar, simmer and save.

Poached Pears

Over late Summer we had a ton of pears in our backyard. We have an Asian pear tree which looks sort of like Shinseiki and a Northwest variety that looks a bit like Seckel. We inherited the trees when we bought the house some years ago when the pear trees were just little babies and weren't bearing much fruit... so, am not sure what the varieties are exactly.

Both the pear trees are short and skinny and bear a ton of fruit within a short span of 6-8 weeks, every other year. Many of the fruits are usually low-hanging that my toddler could reach and pick and enjoy fresh from the tree.

I made a few batches of pear sauce out of the juicy Asian pears and canned them. Pear sauce recipe I used is very much the generic Applesauce recipe, nothing special. About a couple of dozen pears were just sliced and canned in a light syrup. Many were enjoyed as-is, whole, fresh off the tree. Quite a few of them became an integral part of our summer salads.


However, some of the Seckel-style pears were destined to be served poached in a delicious sauce, in a bed of summer berry confetti :)

The rosy green skin was quite a hit with my toddler. They were mildly sweet, not cloying. And when picked just right, they had the crisp crunch that I love. I am not fond of ripe, soft and mushy pears.

Ingredients

for the sauce: 1 can (11½ fl oz) Kern's Papaya nectar† 2/3 cup sugar ¼ cup sweet red wine‡ 1 cup apple juice a 2" piece of cinnamon bark whole (or 1 tsp cinnamon powder) 6-8 allspice berries 2 tsp cornstarch (as needed) ½ cup water 3-4 small to medium, firm pears, peeled.

fruit cofetti: blue berries, raspberries or any of your favorite summer berries, maybe some diced apple all tossed together with about a tablespoon of sugar if preferred

^† or any other Kern's nectar that you like - I just had papaya nectar handy; or even any other preferred 100% fruit juice
^‡I had some Syrah and Tawny Port handy, but any table wine with medium-to-heavy body and on the sweet side can be used

Preparation

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and allow the pears to cook in it till a fork pierces the flesh with some gentle pressure - don't cook till mushy unless you like it that way :)
2. Sauce: combine all the sauce ingredients except the red wine and cornstarch, bring to a boil, then lower the heat, add the par-cooked pears so they are at least 2/3rds immersed in the syrup, add the red wine and simmer on low till thick and syrupy and the pears are fork-tender; dissolve cornstarch in a bit of water and stir it in gently to thicken the sauce to desired consistency as needed
3. Serve warm or cold: place the fruit confetti in the bowl, place the poached pears and drizzle some extra sauce, or serve extra sauce on the side