Pear Sauce or Syrup, in your crockpot!

Sometimes, you can get pears and they are sweet and juicy.  Then other times... well, last week was one of those other times.  I bought two bags of pears, 6 pounds total, and they were so sour & dry!  My husband bit into one & said it was like it was sucking all the moisture out of his mouth!  Now what do you do?  Well, I have a recipe for making applesauce in the crockpot, and I thought, why not make pear sauce in the crockpot?

Crockpot Pear Sauce (or Syrup)

3 lbs. pears

1/2 c. water

2 Tablespoons lemon juice 

1 Tablespoon cinnamon (more or less to taste)

2 Tablespoons maple syrup (1/4 cup if making pear "syrup")

Put water & lemon juice in the crock pot first.  As your processing your pears (peeling, coring, slicing thickly) you can drop them into the lemon water so they don't turn brown.  After the pears are finished add the cinnamon & syrup, stirring to combine.  Cook on low for 6 or more hours.  I set mine to cook before I went to bed in the evening.

In the morning follow the wonderful smell to the crock pot. The pears have reduced quite a bit in cooking, look a little watery & everything is brown (from the syrup or the cinnamon?  I don't know.) but don't let it worry you!

If you have a stick/immersion blender, it would work great for this.  Of course I just used my regular hand blender & it came together well for a "chunky" type sauce.  It is still super hot at this point- if you're planning to have it for breakfast you probably want to get up before breakfast to allow this time to cool off.  It will also thicken slightly as it cools down.

I would suggest you store this in a glass container in the refrigerator & use within 2 weeks.  What really surprised me about this is how sweet it was- wow!  I used 1/4 cup of maple syrup because my pears were so tart, but this sauce was so sweet (that's why I call it syrup)!  My daughter could eat it straight, but I decided it would be better on pancakes.  Both my daughter & I agreed it was great on pancakes (and a lot cheaper than straight maple syrup)!  You should also try it mixed with plain yogurt or add some to your smoothies. 

This post is a part of Pennywise Platter Thursdays

Enjoy!

Lisa