Wednesday, January 27, 2016

A pear will never fall into a closed mouth

Last week I was out drawing on the landscape sketchbook again. This is the view from Aguimes town looking to Arinaga, it's a great plein air painting spot. I would like to comeback another day with my pastels or oil paints. I have the 4 o'clock sun light coming from my right side, so it was quite strong. I think morning light will be much better or a midday light.

work in progress sketchbook

"View from Aguimes to Arinaga", sketchbook page 4

At the studio, I worked on some unfinished oil paintings and there are few more to go through... In the mean time I set a new still-life composition for painting with oil pastels. I used heavy-weight acid-free craft paper which has brown color. This paper holds oil pastels nicely and blends good with warm colors and also gives very good contrast with cold tones. I used Sakura Cray Pas Expressionist 50 color oil pastel set.

work in progress oil pastel painting

detail

"Still-life with pears" by Birsen Ozbilge
Oil pastel on acid-free craft paper, 8" x 11" (21 x 29 cm)   2016
Available, click on SHOP

Recently we bought some pears to make "Poires au vin rouge" (Pears in red wine) dessert. The recipe originally from France but very popular in Spain also. My mother-in-law used make it and I got the recipe from her. It's a super easy recipe if you follow the right measures, no fail guaranteed. Enjoy it!

These are the ones I cooked! Light and delicious...

POIRES AU VIN ROUGE (Pears in red wine)
Ingredients:
3 cups dry red wine (750 ml) Almost a bottle
1 cup sugar (250 gr)
6-8 medium firm pears, pealed
2 cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
1 orange zest strip, 7 cm long
1 bay leaf
a few peppercorns

In a pot combine the wine, sugar and bring to a boil stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange zest, bay leaf and peppercorns and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the pears, cover the lid and cook about 30-40 minutes until they are tender but not too soft. Remove the pears from the syrup and let them cool. Discard the orange zest, bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cloves and the peppercorns and reduce the syrup in high heat until thickened enough to coat a spoon. Let the syrup cool also. When it's cold pour it over the pears, chill it at least for a few hours before serving. Serve it with cream fraiche or spray nata. (This dessert has much better taste the next day or the day after, so it can be prepared in advance).

* Click on the images to see them better quality.

* Comments are welcome, simply reply me.


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