Cardamom Spiced Poached Pears with Ice Cream and Cardamom-Pistachio Cookies

I love the idea of poached fruit desserts with ice-cream, especially after dinner when a cake is too filling and a cookie will not simply not cut it. Having said that, I have such an embarrassing memory from the last time I tried something similar, my pears were hard rock and people were trying to cut the thing as I served them with a fork! Shameful! Let's fast forward to today:)

This time I made up the recipe and was much more careful picking up pears, (we are looking for ripe fruit but not too soft). I redeemed myself big time, as Sera and Andre were there when I first made them and they certainly remember those rocks:)

Here is what you need:

1) 6 ripe pears, Borsh works perfect, try to pick the ones with stems.
2) 2 cups of cranberry-apple juice
3) 5 pods of cardamom
4) 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
5) 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
6) 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
7) Juice of one lemon

Here are the steps:

1) Peel pears and make sure to keep the stems for a pretty after shot:)
2) Cover peeled pears with lemon juice, so they don't get brown.
3) Place pears in a large pot with the cranberry-apple juice and all the spices and vanilla.
4) Poach the pears about 30 minutes under medium heat, until they become soft to touch.
5) Take them on a plate to cool.
6) Fire up the heat to high and continue boiling the juices for the syrup. This takes a long time, and I gave up after the first 30 minutes and microwaved the juice for at least 3 minutes.
7) Plate the dessert as you wish, with ice-cream, frozen yogurt and/or cookies. I had the cardamom cookies on hand and they worked perfect with the cardamom spiced pears.

Marc took the pictures, I love how they came out. It looks way too fancy!

Enjoy!