Skip to main content

Pears cooked in wine and a cat in the kitchen.





I had some leftover red wine and so I decided to make a quick dessert. Peel 4 firm pears, but leave the stalk on. In a pot place one glass of wine and one glass of water, add 3 tbsp of sugar and one star anise. If you don't have star anise you can use a stick of cinnamon. Bring to boil and then lower the pears in. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes (depending on how firm your pears are, they should not mush!

 Remove the pears from the pot and reduce the syrup until is thick. Pour over the pears and serve. They actually turned out redder than the photo shows, but it was late in the evening and dark, and the kitchen light made them look orange!

And now a little cameo: My cat Marameo always finds different spots to sleep in, that shelf is where I usually keep my scales, and when it was vacant Marameo took her chance and grabbed the spot! I thought that she looked very sweet :-).



Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Comments

  1. Love your lovely idea of using leftover wine to make dessert. Thanks for the recipe!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Both pear and cat looks cute.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haha, love your cat :) Our cat is so naughty!
    I have never had red wine pears but it just so happens i have a bottle of red wine open so now i know what i'm gonna make, or maybe get my hubby to make for me :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Never tried red wine pears,looks wonderful, naughty cat..

    ReplyDelete
  5. adoro le pere al vino, le tue sono bellissime! i gatti trovano sempre i posticini migliori ^-^

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have always wanted to try preparing pears this way. Your kitty is adorable.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel

Kamo Kamo Maori Squash and Italian Borlotti Beans

A crop which gives me great pleasure is borlotti beans, not only for their flavour but also because I love the idea of growing protein food! I eat fresh borlotti, or I dry them and then use them to make nice soups and stews; in particular I like soups with pumpkins, but since this year I am traveling on, I will not enjoy the pumpkins that are growing in my garden. So I tried a different 'pairing'. A friend gave me some kamo kamo, the traditional Maori squash, and told me that the way to eat it is to boil it (skin on) and then cut it and spread it with butter (or olive oil...) salt and pepper, and scoop the flesh out with a fork. I had two kamo kamo so I boiled one (as a was told) and cut the other and sauted with a drop of olive oil and other vegetables from my garden: red onion, and celery. Then I added the beans and some water, salt and pepper, and cooked everything until the beans were soft. I added water little by little, when necessary, and I thought that this would be goo