Christmas Menu: Cinnamon Poached Pears

From Real Simple

 For as long as I can remember, we have driven down to Missouri to celebrate Christmas with my maternal grandmother.  This year will be the first in many many years that I will not be in Missouri for Christmas.  While I will be sad to not spend the holiday with my grandma, it is time to start some new family traditions as John and I start our life together.  So, we have decided to host Christmas at our house this year!  We'll do presents and a wonderful meal for our parents and siblings who are able to come.

With this new tradition, we wanted to try some new foods for our Christmas dinner.  We've already done our own version of mashed potatoes and next up is a recipe I saw in Real Simple that I thought would make a beautiful dessert on Christmas day: cinnamon poached pears with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

I already have a caramel sauce recipe that I love and I figured I would give the pears a shot!

What we used:

2 pears
1/2 cinnamon stick
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream

What we will use on Christmas:

10 pears
2 cinnamon sticks
2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
2 cups of sugar
8-10 cups water (enough to mostly cover pears)
1/2 cup heavy cream
 

The steps are very simple (REAL simple, get it?).  First, peel the pears and use a melon baller to scoop out the core of the pears.

Then put all the ingredients in a pot and bring it to a boil, stirring gently to dissolve the sugar.

Once it is boiling, cover and reduce the heat so the pears simmer.  Let it simmer for a few minutes until the pears are soft (10-15 for the larger number of pears).  Then, remove it from the heat and let it sit for a while, cooling in the liquid.  After a little bit of cooling, remove the pears from the liquid.

After that, just add caramel!  Oh, and some vanilla ice cream on the side :)  I didn't feel like making the whole she-bang, so I just did the pears.  But they were delicious and will only be improved with caramel and ice cream on Christmas day!