Vanilla Roasted Pears

This recipe was just posted on Smitten Kitchen, and I tried it out for dessert last night. I used more lemon (perhaps twice as much) as the recipe calls for and only four medium-sized pears, but it was beautiful! The only additional thing I would do next time is turn the juices more "caramelly" by boiling them on the stove after the pears come out of the oven, but even as-is, this was a fantastic dessert (made all the more fancy by butterscotch sauce, also from SK, and Purity French Vanilla ice cream).

Smitten Kitchen's Vanilla Roasted Pears
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
1 1/2 pounds slightly-under-ripe, fragrant, medium pears, peeled if desired, halved though the stem and cored (I used Bosc but will be giving this recipe a spin with Bartlets later today; Schneider says all varieites work)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoon unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place the sugar in a small bowl. With a thin, sharp knife, split the vanilla bean lengthwise in half and scrape out the seeds. Stir the seeds into the sugar.

Arrange the pears in a large baking dish, cut-side up. Drizzle the lemon juice evenly over the fruit, then sprinkle with the sugar. Nestle the vanilla pod among the fruit (I first slit my halves lengthwise into quarters). Pour the water into the dish. Dot each pear with some butter.

Roast the pears 30 minutes brushing them occasionally with the pan juices. Turn the pears over and continue roasting, basting once or twice, until tender and caramelized, 25 to 30 minutes longer (if the pears are small, test for doneness after 35 or 40 minutes of cooking; a paring knife poked into the thickest part of one should meet with no resistance).