Honey Roasted Pears

 

Today was another gray day here in Vermont. We have a lot of them, one day blue skies, the next it’s overcast. But that usually doesn’t stop me from getting outside for a walk into the forest. I take the dogs and go down the trail to see what I can find that’s new, maybe the stream that was covered with snow will now be visible again. Today the ravens were sailing overhead making a lot of racket. It was probably me they were groaking about.

 

 

As I was walking along, my mind wandering, I thought about the pears I had sitting on the counter. Don’t know what prompted that!  I’d been waiting for them to ripen and forgot about them sitting there day after day. When I came back in the first thing I did was check them.

When I buy pears I usually have all these great intentions for using them. I love them in a salad with blue cheese and walnuts, add them to a pork roast as it’s finishing up cooking, or bake them into a tart with slivered almonds. But the problem with pears is they are never ripe when you buy them. This is because they must be picked green. The sugar turns to starch very quickly and they’ll turn mealy and mushy if left to ripen on the tree.

So I buy them and promise myself I will use them before they’re spoiled. The thing with pears is they can go from green and unripe to mushy and brown while you’re not looking. And that’s what happened to me again!

They were past the point where you slice them into a salad or bake a tart but I did find a way to use them. One more day and they’d be chicken food!

So I peeled them, squeezed some lemon juice over them to prevent instant browning, mixed up a filling, stuffed and roasted them. They held up just fine.

Here’s a simple dish that’s a great dessert as well as a great breakfast.

 

 

Honey Roasted Pears

3 pears, I used Bosc but any type will do

2 TBL walnuts

2 TBL raisins

2 TBL unsalted butter, soft

1 TBL honey

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

lemon juice

 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a shallow baking dish.

Peel the pears, cut them in half and scoop out the core. I used a melon scooper to do this, works great. Try to leave the stem on if you can, it makes a nice presentation. Squeeze lemon juice all over them.

Chop the raisins and walnuts together finely. Put in a bowl with the butter, honey and spices. Mix it all up together and fill each pear with it. Place the pears cut side down in the baking dish and bake about 25 minutes.

Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some vanilla yogurt. Shave some chocolate on top too if you wish.

 

I reheated one the next day and put it on top of my oatmeal with some Greek yogurt. Delicious!

 

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