March 15: National Pears Helene Day

What is Pears Helene Day? And how do you pronounce it?

It's a fancy French dessert. I found a variety of recipes and they all made it seem like this is a common dessert. Huh. Suspicious. Anyways, I decided to give it a go.

Pears Helene:

Ingredients:
- 4 pears (every recipe listed a different type of pear. I went to the store and bought the first pears I saw and they ended up being ok. I'll say that I used green pears.)
Note: Before cooking, cut the pairs lengthwise and core them. Leave (or attempt to leave) the stem on.

- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 1/2 cups water, divided
- vanilla ice cream (optional)
- chocolate sauce (optional) (see below for my home-made chocolate sauce recipe)

A pair of pears!

 Note about getting the core out of a pear: It is difficult. I peeled my pears first because they weren't organic. Different recipes called for peeling pears while others didn't. I think it's a personal choice. Peeled pears look a little bit like naked people. Peeled pears are also very slippery and make cutting the core out difficult. My two pears resulted into five different pieces, instead of four halves. Oh well.

Here's a tongue twister: Peeled paired pears. Peeled paired pears. Peeled paired pears purchased pails of pears off a pier.

Yes, I did make that up myself. No, I can't say it.

Five pear "halves" instead of four...

Directions:
1. In a medium pot, combine the cinnamon sticks, water, and sugar together. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer for about 5 minutes. It should be a golden brown color and start to thicken.
2. Add in the remaining two cups water and keep on a very low heat.
3. Add the pear halves to the mixture and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes or until poached. I stuck mine with a fork and it easily went all the way through so I called that done.
4. Allow the pears to cool in their sauce.
5. Serve with ice cream or chocolate sauce or whatever you would like.

Doing their stuff in the sauce.

I decided to make a home-made chocolate sauce. The first time I burned it really bad and had to start again. I then almost burned the second batch while capturing the below video of my cat, Sophie.

                                                   She's intrigued by a piece of asparagus.

Home-Made Chocolate Sauce:

 

Ingredients:
- 2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup milk (I used unsweetened almond milk and it tasted fine)

Directions:
Mix the sugar, cocoa powder, flour, and salt together in a pot. Add in half of the milk and mix to form a thick paste. Add in the rest of the milk and bring to a boil. STIR CONSTANTLY. (This is why mine burned, I didn't stir constantly.) Reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often. Let cool and serve. Apparently you can stir the remainders in the fridge for up to two weeks. This was a delicious chocolate sauce. I'll be making this again. Goodbye store-bought preservative-filled chocolate sauces, I make my own now!

I couldn't get the halves to stick together.

Oh well..

So my honest impressions: It was interesting. I would make it again, but not if I had guests over. I really had to man handle them while trying to get the core out. I don't think someone would want to eat one knowing that I had man handled it. The chocolate sauce was really good! I did feel fancy eating it. I did not feel French while eating it. I don't normally eat pears as I don't like their "grainy-ness" but these ones were barely even grainy.