Poached Pear Pie

Last weekend, I received four beautiful Bartlett pears in my produce share. I love pears, but they always seem to go bad before I get around to eating them. So this time I decided to make them into a pie to avoid such a terrible fate, remembering that my mom made a similar decision last Christmas.

This pie is different in the one my mom made. I stumbled upon one pie online that poached the pears in wine and spices and I decided to try that approach. As you're on the hunt for a pie for your Thanksgiving table you should definitely consider adding this pie to your spread. Beyond the fact that this pie is absolutely delicious, you should make this pie for the wonderful smell that engulfs your kitchen during the poaching process. It smells like the holidays.

Still not convinced? The day after I made this pie a coworker asked for the recipe to use as her entry in a pie bake off contest at work. I thought that would be it for my involvement, until I was asked to be a judge for the bake off. So on my lunch break, I sat on a panel of three judges and tasted 10 pies. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. :) My coworker put her own spin on the pie and added fresh cranberries and brought home the second place prize. (And no, I didn't rig the contest, the pie was just that good!)

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Poached Pear Pie

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup sweet red wine
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4-5 pears
1 cup fresh cranberries
2 teaspoons cornstarch.

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Peel, core and quarter all the pears.

In a large pot, combine the water, wine, sugar, vanilla, and spices and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, place the pears in the liquid and reduce the heat to medium. Simmer for 20 minutes uncovered turning the pears once midway.

After 20 minutes, or when the pears are tender, remove the pears and place in a chilled bowl to cool. Also remove the cinnamon and cloves from the liquid and discard.

Return the liquid to a boil and cook until it has been reduced to about 3/4 cup. At this point whisk in the 2 teaspoons of cornstarch to thicken into a syrup.

Pour into a measuring cup and let cool.

Once the pears are cool enough to handle, cut the quarters into cubes.

Line the pie place with the bottom crust and spread the pear cubes and cranberries out evenly.

Pour the syrup reduction over the pears as evenly as possible and top with pats of butter.

Place the top crust, either whole with slits cut in or latticed like in the picture at the top of this post. (Note: I needed larger slits!)

Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.

Be sure to let cool before cutting into the pie, no matter how delicious it tastes or your pie slice will fall apart, not that I speak from experience!

Source: Adapted from the Queens Notebook

Country Apple Galette

I took a French cooking class at Sur-la-Table this winter with both of my sister-in-laws. Not only was it a fun evening together, but it was also a wonderful way to learn how to make some things that were out of our cooking realms, and then enjoy the fruits of our labor by sitting down to a delicious French meal! You should really consider taking a class at your local Sur-la-Table; the prices are incredibly reasonable, they prep and clean everything (worth the price of admission in itself), the classes are small and intimate and completely hands-on, the instructors are knowledgeable and engaging, you can bring your own wine to make the evening more lively, the menus are well thought out, and the finished product is a meal that might cost upwards of $100 in a restaurant. We all left the class feeling satisfied belly-wise and kitchen skills-wise.

Anyways, one of the items we made that night was a Pear Galette. A galette is basically a free form pie or tart which you can fill with anything you can imagine, savory or sweet. It is a fairly simple dessert, with very few ingredients and very little time involved. Well, especially little time if you purchase your pastry dough as I did! It is a fresh and delicate dessert that really lets the ingredients sing. I used apples because it is winter, and because I like apples! I found this Jacques Pepin recipe on Food and Wine. At some point I will try the dough recipe and I will report on how it turns out later.

The apple galette turned out beautiful and so yummy! We actually took this over to a friend's house for dessert. It traveled easily and reheated perfectly to be served after dinner warm and bubbly out of the oven. I think you really only need two or three apples tops. I did not do the bottom layer of chopped apples (I was running very short on time!), I just did the decoratively arranged sliced apples, and that turned out to be plenty of apple in the dessert. I actually think you could cut the sugar down to 1 tablespoon rather than two. Otherwise I think the recipe is pretty much perfect.

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Ingredients:
1 refrigerated pie dough
4 Golden Delicious apples (I think you could actually use just two or three tops)
2 tablespoons of sugar (I think you could cut this down to 1 tablespoon)
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of honey
1 tablespoon of butter, cut into small pieces

Steps:
1. Gather your ingredients and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Peel, halve and then quarter the apples. Once each apple is in 4 pieces, you can easily cut out the core from each piece.

Peeled. 

Halved.

Quartered.

Cored.

Still messy!

All cleaned up with no skin!

3. Thinly slice the apple quarters into crescent shaped slices. Set the apples aside.

Sliced.

Sliced.

4. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and the cinnamon.

5. Coat a rimmed baking sheet with non-stick spray and stretch the pastry dough into a circle on the tray.

6. Decoratively arrange the apple slices on the dough, leaving about an inch at the edge of the dough uncovered.

7. Drizzle the honey evenly over all of the apples.

8. Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar mixture evenly over the apples.

9. Dot the small pieces of butter evenly onto the apples.

10. Gently pull the 1 inch of uncovered dough up over the apples to create a one inch border.

11. Bake the galette in the 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes to an hour. You want the pastry to be golden brown and the apples to be tender.

12. Serve warm or at room temperature. Ice Cream might be a fun addition!    

Sleepy puppies after a big walk and bath!