Love Them Apples

You wouldn’t know it from the triple-digit heat wave on the radar for later this week, or from the heat wave that just left us last week, but the farmers market harvest tells all: Autumn is just about here. The pears and first crop of apples are like Noah’s rainbow. They give me hope. Cooler weather will come.

Of course unlike Noah, I’ve also got my fingers crossed for rain. Just this morning I mentioned it to Bad*ss Bassman, as we woke to (finally) a cool morning coming in through our backyard bedroom door. For months I’ve been hoping for a good rainy day reason to skip out of work and lounge around reading in my pajama pants and slippers. I am craving a drip drop on the window panes and an indulgently lazy day.

But if we don’t have rain, I’ll take the cooler weather, even for just a day or two between heat waves. Autumn is coming, that’s the truth. As much as I love summer’s stone fruit, it’s the snuggle down autumn harvest of winter squashes, apples, pears and pomegranates that has me pulling books from the shelf. You know, just in case we get that rain.

This is a simply elegant and elegantly simple dessert. If I were serving this to guests, I’d probably add a scoop of coconut bliss ice cream or a dollop of homemade whipped coconut cream on the side, perhaps a sprinkle of chocolate shavings… but it doesn’t need it. The sauce is rich. The pears are sweet. And I just remembered that we have one more of these left over in the fridge….

POACHED PEARS IN RED WINE SAUCE

serves 5. time: 5 minutes prep, 30 minutes to cook.

Ingredients

5 Pears - Bosc, Anjou… as long as they are not too soft, any kind will do

1 1/2 cups red wine, like a merlot, pinot noir, cab.

3/4 cups sugar (preferably unbleached, organic)

2 teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

Slice the pears in half from top to bottom. Using a spoon or melon baller, scoop out the seeds. You can leave the stem.

In a sauce pot, mix all the other ingredients (not the pears) and bring to boil. Add the pears and cover, lowering the heat to medium. Simmer for 15 minutes until the pears are soft. Uncover the pot and let the sauce reduce for 15 minutes.

Let cool. 

Serve the pears with some of the sauce drizzled on them. Coconut cream is optional.

Savor.

xoxo, Arielle.