Giada De Laurentiis

Poached Pears: A Giada De Laurentiis Recipe

As you might imagine, I do a great deal of cooking.  While I love to wing it, creating my own concoctions, I love trying out new recipes even more.  It’s fun to tinker with recipes I’ve found and see what new things I can come up with – but there are a lot of recipes that need no tinkering whatsoever. Some chefs and celebrity cooks come up with recipes where I’m convinced tinkering around would be sinful.  Because I try out so many different cookbooks and recipes, I do consider myself an expert when it comes to household celebrity chefs and cooks.

Someone can mention a name and I’m able to tell them to trust most of their recipes, some of their recipes, or none of their recipes. Then there’s the select group when I simply say, “Get your hands on every recipe carrying their name. Make each of these recipes. Don’t change a thing.”  Oddly enough, this select group isn’t made up of very many.  However, Giada De Laurentiis is firmly on the list and has been for quite a few years. Every single recipe this woman comes up with is 100 percent perfection.

The same is true for her line of kitchen and cooking products.  I’ll let you in on a little secret. As you know if you read any of my blogs, I’ve got a Target fixation. I’m there at least 3 times a week! There are certain departments I gravitate toward EACH trip:

• The cat food/birdseed aisles. With 4 cats and a yard constantly filled with birds, it’s little wonder I always make a beeline to these aisles.
• The Starbucks in the front of our local Target. Thank you, Target, Thank you very much.
• The clothes aisle.
• The cooking and kitchen aisle. Target has the most beautiful dishes! They’ll often have great sales, too, in addition to their regularly low prices.

However, before any of these stops, my first stop is ALWAYS the Giada De Laurentiss aisle.  I’d faint dead away if they ever put out a new product with her smiling face on the front and I wasn’t the first to buy it. Dead away.

Basically, if you see the name Giada De Laurentiis on anything (recipe, cookbook, Lasagna dish, spatula, magazine…), you’d be crazy not to add it to your arsenal.

Below is a beautifully delicious and deliciously beautiful recipe for Poached Pears from Giada De Laurentiis.  It’s shared with my readers courtesy of Target’s A Bullesye View.

Poached Pears in Honey, Ginger and Cinnamon Syrup

2 cups simple syrup, recipe follows
1 (750) ml bottle Moscato wine or other sweet dessert wine
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tablespoons honey
1 ( 3/4 inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
6 small, firm, ripe Anjou or Bosc pears, peeled and cored
Vanilla ice cream or gelato

For the syrup
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups water

STEP 1: In a saucepan large enough to hold all the pears, combine the wine, simple syrup, cinnamon sticks, honey and ginger. Scrape in the seeds from the vanilla bean and add the bean to the saucepan.

STEP 2: Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the honey has melted. Add the pears and simmer over medium-low heat for fifteen to twenty minutes, turning occasionally, until the pears are tender.

STEP 3: Remove the pears from the liquid and allow to cool. Continue to simmer the liquid until it thickens and is reduced by half, about fifteen to twenty minutes. Cool to room temperature. Remove the cinnamon sticks and vanilla bean and discard, or keep to garnish!

STEP 4: Place each pear on a small serving plate with a hefty scoop of vanilla ice cream.

STEP 5: Drizzle on the syrup, serve immediately and devour!

YUM!

Recipe and Photo Credit: A Bullesye View