Our Marsala-poached pears are delicious served warm with a little ice cream or whipped cream, whether for a big event or a weeknight treat. With the delicious flavor of Marsala wine, it is simpler than pie.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Total Time: | 40 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 12 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 sweet onion, chopped
- 1 butternut squash – peeled, seeded, and cubed
- 2 Gala apples, cored and cubed, or more to taste
- 1 cup water, or more as needed
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
- 1 cup red wine
- ½ cup cranberry juice
- ½ cup water
- 1 tablespoon mulling spices
- 1 ¼ cups raisins
- 8 ounces chevre (soft goat cheese), crumbled
Instructions
- Melt butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Cook and stir onion in hot butter until translucent and soft, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir butternut squash, apples, and 1 cup water into onion mixture. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low and simmer until apples are tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
- Pour squash mixture into a blender no more than half full. Cover and hold lid down; pulse a few times before leaving on to blend. Puree in batches until smooth. Transfer puree to a bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Stir wine, cranberry juice, and 1/2 cup water together in a saucepan. Bring wine mixture to a boil; add mulling spices, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 2 minutes. Add raisins and simmer until plumped, 5 to 10 minutes. Drain and discard wine mixture.
- Stir raisins into squash puree and top with goat cheese.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 205 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 30 g |
| Cholesterol | 18 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 112 mg |
| Sugars | 17 g |
| Fat | 7 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is a very good recipe, and it was a hit at the “Friendsgiving” dinner we attended this weekend. However, the directions are misleading, and I emphasize a couple points other reviewers have mentioned, and I have some of my own. The squash takes longer to cook than indicated. Cook until it is tender. Drain the squash, onion, and apple mixture thoroughly before putting it in the food processor. DO NOT add extra water up front. Reserve water from the cooking pot and add it later, if necessary, after you have started to puree. After simmering the mulling spices in the wine mixture, STRAIN IT FIRST AND RESERVE THE FLUID. DO NOT PUT RAISINS IN BEFOREHAND. Return the strained wine to the saucepan and then add the raisins as directed. If the puree still seems too soupy, baking it at 350 will cook off extra liquid. Test for texture every five to ten minutes. ADD MORE BUTTER to the cooking process and at the end when you are mixing in the raisins. It’s Thanksgiving, after all.
Easy recipe. Be careful not to overlook and don’t use all the water from the vegetable apple mix when pureeing. You can always add more in later but it made mine very soupy. I used red cooking wine, cranberry juice water cinnamon cloves and nutmeg and cooked cranberries. I don’t like raisins. They tasted grate. I sprinkled feta cheese instead. I’m using it for Thanksgiving tomorrow and will have to bake it in the oven and hopefully cook out some of the soupiness.
I found the directions confusing, I wish they would be broken down into more steps. my raisins did not turn out very well, at all.
I used golden raisins but would use Craisins® in the future. There’s one confusing step to this recipe which was a bit of pain to correct. In step #3, it says to “drain and discard wine mixture,” but I think this should read “drain and discard mulling spices.” You want that reduced wine mixture and those infused raisins, but not the mulling spice mixture (it’s already done its job). Should have used my head, but I added the mulling spices to the wine and raisin mixture, and when I realized that there were things in that mulling spice that might break a tooth, I had to go through and pick all of the pieces of the cinnamon stick, star anise, etc. (all those hard things)….aaaargh! Think what you need to do is put the mulling spices in a cheesecloth bag and tie up or even better, if you have a tea strainer, use that. This part was a hassle, but on the positive side, it does taste good.