Red Wine Poached Pears

After looking at several different recipes, I decided that this wasn't a terribly challenging way to prepare pears and used what I had on hand one evening when I made dinner for older gentlemen who's a mentor and friend of mine. He's a rather cheap fellow who doesn't often bother to eat vegetables and fruit, so this was my effort to make a simple but elegant meal for him that did not involve a microwave. I rattled on and on about my senior project while I cooked... he was more than happy to indulge my fruit monomania.


Recipe for Two:

2 ripe, firm fleshed pears (I used Starkrimsons)
1 half leftover bottle of red wine you didn't like that much
Enough apple juice or other fruit juice to finish covering the fruit
1/2 cup sugar
1 orange zest cut in a single, attractive spiral
3 cloves

Let come to a boil, and turn the heat down to keep the liquid simmering for about a half hour. Prod with a knife or fork (though not too much, since the holes look bad...) to test and see if they've cooked all the way through.

A pretty way to present is to carefully cut the pear
in a fan, leaving it intact at the top. You can pick out the seeds, if you want.