Poached Pears

2 Pears and a 1/2 bottle of wine what do you do? Raise the ante and hope to draw a full house? No poach the pears, and you'll have a sure winner.

Poached Pears

2 Pears, peeled but leave the stem in

1 cup wine, I used a Zinfandel Shiraz blend

1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you want it

1 cinnamon stick

4 cloves

Put everything in a saucepan that is small enough that the pears will be submerged. If you don't have a pan that will let the pears be submerged then don't worry, just rotate the pears every few minutes to keep the color uniform as they absorb the wine.

While the wine is heating up peel the pears. You can cut a slice off from the bottom so they will stand up without wobbling. If you want to speed things up a little here take a melon baller and scoop out the core of the pear a little. I did not do this and it took about 45 minutes for them to get soft and then the center was still a little hard. By scooping them I think they will soften faster. If you scoop the insides I would serve the pear standing up on the plate instead of fanned like the one in my pictures. The pears in the pictures are still connected at the stem end.

After the pears are soft remove them from the liquid, but let the liquid keep simmering. Let it simmer until it becomes a syrup. Watch this part closely once it becomes syrup it will burn shortly after that. Drizzle the syrup around the plate and/or over the pears. Simple but very good!