Poached Pears With Sweet Cream (Alternatively Apples And Peaches)

It’s time to celebrate the the fruits (and veggies) of your labor with a garden dinner party this season. Gather your loved ones to help pick their favorite veggies and fruits from your garden, prepare dishes together using your garden ingredients, set up a table setting outside and share all of the delicious joys of a job well done.

No matter what you have growing, there are endless tasty recipes to try out. Here are a few of our favorites…

Ingredients

• RASPBERRY SAUCE
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• POACHED FRUIT
• 1 750-ml bottle dry red wine
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 6 fresh pears
• SWEET CREAM
• 1/2 package (8-oz size) cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup Mountain High® original, lowfat or fat free plain yoghurt

Instructions

1. To make the raspberry sauce, heat raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice in 1-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook about 5 minutes or until berries start to break down. Remove from heat and strain mixture through a fine sieve or cheesecloth-lined strainer into a measuring cup. Use a spoon to help force juice through the strainer. Pour sauce into a squirt bottle and chill completely.
2. To make the sweet cream, beat the cream cheese with the powdered sugar in a 1-quart bowl. Stir in yoghurt. Cover and chill while preparing pears.
3. To make the pears, peel pears and core from bottom leaving stems attached. Cut slice (if necessary) from bottom of each pear so it will stand upright when served.
4. Combine wine, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and cloves in a 4-quart saucepan or narrow stockpot. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally; add pears. Heat to boiling, reduce heat. Cover and simmer approximately 50 to 60 minutes, gently rotating pears and spooning sauce over pears several times to color evenly (use tongs to grasp the stems and move them), until pears are tender when pierced with tip of sharp knife.
5. To assemble, ladle 1 / 4 of the sweet cream onto the center of each of 6 dessert plates. Place dots of raspberry sauce on the sweet cream, around the pears. Using a toothpick and in a continuous clockwise motion, drag the tip of the toothpick through the middle of the raspberry sauce drops to create red hearts.