Vanilla poached pears

I went grocery shopping today sans Al.  This gave me more time in the produce section, since it is usually so crammed that he quickly gets antsy to get going to the beef jerky section.  Anyway, I ended up staring at some bosc pears for quite some while.  I picked a couple up and then contemplated what the heck I was going to do with them for the rest of my shopping spree- and obviously came to the conclusion that they would be scarfed down in a dessert form.  This recipe is pretty good, but I can't say that I'll make it again.  Why?  It used up all of my vanilla (which is definitely not cheap), I JUST bought some and I already need to run to the store to buy more!  I'll probably just wait to eat these again until pears have been genetically modified to taste like vanilla. Rating 6/10.

 

Ingredients

• 2-4 bosc pears
• 4 cups of water
• 3 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp honey
• optional 1/2 cup sugar

Boil the water, vanilla extract, and honey in a saucepan.
Core the pears from the bottom, but don't remove the core all the way to the stem.  Peel the pear (and eat the peelings nom nom).
Slice off enough of the bottom of the pear so that they can stand upright.
Place the pears in the saucepan, cover, and reduce the heat.
Simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Remove the pears and allow them to cool before serving.

Optional sugar striping:
in a frying pan heat up 1/2 cup of white sugar.  Stir constantly until melted through and stripe the pears with it.

Chocolate sauce would also be delicious.