December is always the shortest month, it passes so quickly, first we have in the Netherlands Sint Nikolaas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint_Nicolaas) a special celebrations for children ( a man with a big white beard and a lot of ‘zwarte pieten’ are coming by boat from Spain to the Netherlands to give the children presents if they behaved the whole year like an angel ; )). On the 5th of December it’s the big evening, where the doorbell will ring and there are a lot of presents in a bag in front of the door. Time for unwrap them : ).
Of course on the 25th of December it’s x -mass time, I think it’s everywhere in the world! Christmas trees and lighting are taken over the living room and gardens ( Here people really get crazy with lights).
Everybody is going to eat with family or friends. We didn’t had a big dinner with family because my parents house is too little for all the family, so we did on the second Christmas-day a drink in the afternoon and a walk in the forest. Really relaxing and you stay thin : )
Now it’s the 30th, so tomorrow (it’s new years eve) a lot of people getting drunk, party, eating some kind of round doughnuts with raisins in it, playing games and so on. When the telly is counting down from 10 till 0, the fireworks will getting started. I like to watch fireworks on a distance, but to be on a square with a lot of drunken people, putting on the fireworks I don’t like. Every year you hear terrible stories, but whatever no time for talking about this…..we have to end this year happy and relax. Looking back after a great, strange, chaotic year and where a lot of changes has taken place.
And the best too look forward is we are getting a baby surround the 6 of June!! Anyway party and be happy, I wish you the best for 2012…and here some nice recipe of a side dish, it takes a long time. You can make this as a dinner but also as a dessert. But I really enjoyed this also when I was a child I really loved this.
Poached pears (4 persons) a side dish
are you ready?
1 cup of water
2 cups of cranberries
1 tablespoon of rice syrup (or maybe you like to take sugar or some other syrup) and some people like it more sweeter, so taste if you want to put more syrup in the pears.
1,5 kilogram of raw poached pears taken of the peel (In the Netherlands we have wildeman gieser pears)
3 teaspoons of star anise powder
Kitchen tools
a knife to peel the pears
a big cooking pan
a wooden spoon
The beginning…..
Ok it’s a lot of peeling work but after it’s easy! Peel the pears and cut them in 4 equal pieces. wash them and put them in the cooking pan together with all the other ingredients! Mix softly all the ingredients together. Put the fire on and bring the pears slowly to a boil, when it.s boiling put the fire on the lowest stand and put the lid on the pan….
Stew this for 2 hours or more, I didn’t had so much time so I did for 2 hours!
Stir sometimes a little and look if the bottom isn’t burning (then you have the fire too high).
After this is ready and now you can use it, with some nice potatoes on the side and some nice vegan burger or use this pears for dessert, it’s very sweet and nice together with some lemon icecream. Anyway enjoy this little sweet side dish oh and before I forget you can make this also with some cinnamon-stick (while stewing) instead of the star anise and without the cranberries, or maybe I never tried but it’s sounds great with some vanilla stick in the stew while stewing. Anyway dare to try
Eet smakelijk