Riesling Baked Pears - cooking recipe

Ingredients

4 ripe pears, washed and dried (preferably Bosc with stems still attached)
2 cups riesling wine or 2 cups other fruity wine
1/4 cup honey
4 cinnamon sticks
4 bay leaves
4 slices orange zest

Preparation

Tip: For the orange zest, scrub the orange first and then use a vegetable peeler to remove the strips of zest. Make sure to leave behind the bitter, white pith.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice a thin piece off the bottom of each pear so that it will sit flat, standing up straight.
Arrange the pears in a pie pan or oven-proof small casserole dish.
Whisk wine and honey in a medium bowl until blended. (I usually have to microwave mine to make the honey melt a bit so that they will combine.).
Pour honey-wine mixture over pears and add cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and orange zest to the liquid.
Roast the pears, basting every 15 minutes, until they are tender and a bit wrinkled (about 45 minutes to 1 hour).
Use a slotted spoon to transfer the pears to serving dishes. Put the honey-wine mixture into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil until slightly thickened, about 6 minutes. Drizzle over pears and garnish with cinnamon sticks and orange zest.
Serve warm, at room temp, or chilled.
Note: We sometimes put a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on this. Very rich and yummy. Another option: try cheese, such as ricotta or mascarpone -- sweeten cheese and stir it first.