Green Tea Poached Asian Pears

I bought a basket of Asian Pears from a local farmer at the River Market last weekend and was worried they would go bad, so I found this great recipe. It is for for green tea poached asian pears with a maple nut cream sauce. I made a few modifications to the recipe and here it is...

DIRECTIONS:

I started off by boiling a little over 2 cups of water on the stove top. Once the water began to boil, I dropped in both green tea bags and let it steep for about 3 minutes. I removed the tea bags from the pot and the pot from the heat. I then added the turbinado sugar. The sugar needs to completely melt away before adding any other ingredients. This works best right after boiling. I then added the lemon peel, ginger, sugar, star anise, and mint. While all of the flavors began to gently meld in the hot water, I peeled, cored, and halved all of the asian pears. I dropped them in to the pot and placed the pot back on the hot burner for another 15 minutes to simmer and stirred the mixture periodically. While the pears were poaching, I mixed together the yogurt, maple syrup, and chopped pecans for the cream sauce. Once the pears poached, I removed them from the water and placed them into small bowls. I drizzled the warm pears with the cream sauce and ate this delectable, yet healthy dessert.

INGREDIENTS:

poached pears

2 cups water

2 green tea bags
lemon peel from 1/2 a lemon
2 inches of ginger root (cut into thin coins)
1 cup of turbinado sugar (regular sugar will work fine, too)
2 star anise
1 tsp of dry mint
10 mini Asian Pears (shaved, cored, and halved)

cream sauce

6 oz. of low fat vanilla yogurt

1 tbsp. of natural maple syrup

2 tbsp. of chopped roasted pecans

Mangia!