Drunken Pears Stuffed with Cookie Crumble - by Lisa

I confess, this is the recipe I was putting off all month. Well, I guess that's obvious given it is the final day of January. I had two reasons for the delay: 1) I don't enjoy pears in most cases. Yes, it's a texture thing. 2) I was having a problem finding the Bosc pears at my regular grocer. I did finally find them at another grocery store.

Alas, I could delay no longer, so off to the kitchen I went. And promptly forgot that I needed the gingersnap cookies. It's a good thing I reviewed the recipe early in the day! So I had Caiden help me make the cookies which he thoroughly enjoyed. I've made those so much these last couple of months they're becoming old hat! :)

I used the serrated peeler that Beth has raved about, and I have to say she's absolutely right! I love that thing! As I was peeling, I determined that the pears probably weren't quite as ripe as they could have been, but oh well. Too late to worry about that now. See? Procrastination = bad!

Once I had everything together, assembly went fairly quickly. Like Summer, my wine bath didn't thicken up very much in the first 15 min, tho it did reduce by the very end of the baking. But the pears were taking on a nice color.

I thought the contrast of the hollowed out centers against the red was quite pretty

I let them bake for about 10 minutes after adding the cookie crumble mixture.  

I didn't really care for the pears themselves, but as a carrier for the cookie crumble, you can't go wrong! That part was delicious! I was pleased with how they looked in the final product, but the pears themselves were meh. I suspect that if they were riper from the start, they would have softened up quite a bit more. These certainly would make for an elegant dinner party dessert tho!