Roasted Pears

Fall is pear season (and apple season, and squash season, and anything pumpkin season…!!) but I think the lovely pear too often takes a back seat in the whole fall harvest line up. Pears are delicious! They are high in fibre (more so than apples!) chock full of flavenoids, they are easily digested and low on the allergen scale. What’s not to love?!

There are a myriad of ways to enjoy this virtuous fruit.  Raw pears are lovely chopped or sliced into a salad with slivers of a nice sharp cheese and some toasted nuts (dip slices in a weak lemon water solution to mitigate the browning).  And, of course, who could forget this Honeyed Pear Upside Down Skillet Cake? These brilliant roasted beauties are also lovely chopped onto a salad too, adding a nice balance to a feta and greens combo. They also go well in chia puddings, (another post I am working on!) Pears really are the unsung hero's of autumn!

You will notice this recipe is rather large, and is perfect for a crowd. But with how tasty they are,  I am sure you will agree that more is better and leftovers are always used up in our house! If you do want to cut it down, reduce your ingredients accordingly except the liquid, only take it down to ¾ of the amount. The juices that accumulate in the bottom of the pan make a lovely drizzle, you won't want them to roast dry. 

Roasted Pears

9 Pears (Bosc, Bartlett or Red Bartlett all work well)

3 Tbsp butter, cold if possible, cut into 18 small pieces

1 tsp vanilla or vanilla powder

2 Tbsp coconut sugar (or other sweetener of choice, maple syrup and honey both work well, just drizzle instead of sprinkling)

1 cup liquid (you can get creative here! I usually use water, but have recently also used a nice hard apple ginger cider, but regular cider or apple juice would be lovely too)

Preheat oven to 400F

Cut pears in half lengthwise, and remove core and stem. A melon baller works wonderfully for the core, but I have used a teaspoon in a pinch.

Place pears cut side up in a 10x15 glass pan (or two smaller pans if necessary).  Sprinkle with the vanilla and the coconut sugar. 

Place a small piece of butter into each cavity. Add the liquid to the pan (if using two smaller pans, increase the liquid by ¼ cup for each pan)

Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, and carefully flip the pears so the cut side is now down. Bake for another 20 minutes (at this point check to make sure the pears are soft thru…if your pears are on the firmer side you may need to add 5-10 minutes to the cooking time to cook them thru, you want them to be fork tender.)

Remove from oven and let cool slightly before serving with topping of choice. (we have topped them with whipped coconut cream, vanilla ice cream, this maple custard, or just on their own. )

 

Pears pictured here topped with
a lovely vanilla ice cream and
a drizzle of pan juices 

These pears were roasted with a hard cider,
in a cottage on Lake Seneca for
 a friends birthday. We topped them with
whipped coconut cream and served with a
really fast ginger espresso  meringue-like
 cookie that I winged!