Don't You (Forget About Me)

This song has been stuck in my head for the last couple of days.  For those of you who also grew up in the 80s, it's pretty easy for that one to be an earworm.

What is it we shouldn't forget?  As spring really gets started, we all start looking forward to fruit.  Very soon we'll all be stuffing our faces full of berries and starting to make jam.  I've been craving strawberry jam for some time now, so believe me I'm looking forward to the berries too.  Shortly thereafter (maybe six weeks from now-ish), we'll be eating... well, let's see if you can guess from this:

 

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.  As I see these favorites arrive, I also can't forget that another will be leaving until the fall:  pears.  I love pears.  Remember when we talked about pear desserts? They're also great in salads.  And we're really getting lots of different kinds of lettuces right now, so a beautiful salad would be a great way to say, "see you next time, and I won't forget about you" to those beautiful pears.

Photo via MyRecipes

• Do you have any apples left from last week?  Paired with some of the pears (sorry couldn't resist), this salad comes together with an amazing mix of textures.
• Pears pair well (yes, I'll stop now) with strongly-flavored cheeses, like bleu, stilton, and gorgonzola.  This salad is a great example.
• Radicchio is a bitter lettuce that I've only recently discovered.  I do love the color it brings to dishes.  It also pairs well with fennel, as in this recipe.  I've made this similar one for a while, too, and pears would contrast well with its saltiness.
• If you'd like to go all-out with the lettuce varieties, here you go!

Photo via Whole Foods

 

The Kind That Doesn't Come From Cows

This time of year is a perfect window of opportunity in the canning world.  The last of the peaches are straggling in, and both apples and pears are starting up.  All three of those make for wonderful fruit butters!  Making your own fruit butter is incredibly easy, as well.

Photo via MyRecipes

The following process works for any fruit (or veggie) that you'd like to turn into butter:

1. Cut up the fruit into small-ish cubes.  Soft, over-ripe or bruised fruit works great in this case; moldy fruit doesn't.  Cut off any suspect-looking spots.  There is no need to peel any fruit, and I use whole apples and pears, meaning seeds, cores and all.  For peaches, you will need to remove the pit.  Add them to a pot that has about half an inch of water on the bottom.
2. Boil, covered, for about 45 minutes.  The fruit should be really soft and have given up a lot of juices by then.
3. Use a potato masher or an immersion blender to turn the fruit into mush.  Be careful with the immersion blender, it's easy to liquify the fruit too much.  This is fruit butter, and it should still have some solid texture.  For apples and pears, you will want to use a food mill to catch the seeds still in the fruit.
4. Measure how much fruit mush you have.  For each cup of mash, add either 1/2 cup of sugar or 1/3 cup of honey.  If you'd like lower sugar content, you can substitute up to half the sugar with Stevia.  You want to add the sugar or honey off heat, and stir really well before you go any further.
5. This is a great trick that I recently learned.  Put the mush/sugar blend into your slow cooker and prop the lid slightly off the surface.  Here, I'm using a wooden spoon and spatula to do so:





6. Let it cook down on low until it's the thick consistency of fruit butter.  This will take a few (or more than a few) hours.  Stir every couple of hours.  If you need to let it sit overnight, close the lid all the way and unplug the slow cooker.  In the morning, just re-start the heating and prop the lid up.
7. Once the fruit butter is the right consistency, it's time to spice it.  Never add any flavoring until it's the right consistency.  (The flavor will concentrate, and you'll have seriously over-done it.)  You can add a variety of spices, and even spirits.  Always do a little at a time, as it's way easier to add more than to take some away.  If using spirits, don't mix it into the large batch of butter.  Put 1/2 to 1 teaspoon in the bottom of each sterilized pint jar, and stir in after filling the jar.  Here are some things I've found that work well:

Fruit	Spices	Spirits
Peach	Cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom	Bourbon (oh, yeah!), brandy
Pear	Cinnamon, star anise, allspice (those three together ROCK!)	Brandy, red wine, cinnamon schnapps
Apple	Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice	Brandy, cinnamon schnapps



8. Fill your jars, leaving a quarter inch at the top.  Put the lids on and process in a boiling water bath for 15-20 minutes.  Allow to cool slowly, then test the seals.  Ta da!

Photo via SVkitchen

The above method can work for lots of things not discussed:  plums, winter squash (particularly pumpkin and butternut), apricots...  If you find other spices or spirits that work well, please include them in the comments!

Pearly Sunny Smoothie

Have you missed my smoothie kick that I was on early in the year?  I didn't fall off the wagon due to eating a bunch of donuts for breakfast, nope...I broke my blender.  One of the pitfalls of being short and having high cabinets is that I drop stuff, A LOT.  Shouldn't I just put my blender that can easily separate into all of it's pieces if it's not level into a bottom cabinet?  No, because that would make sense.  Putting it on a high shelf in my laundry room was clearly the best option.  And when one smoothie mongering morning I went to take it down, the top wobbled off and some how I managed to drop the whole blessed assembly.  Now it won't even make a buzzing sound, I cracked the container, and some how managed to bend the entire rotary unit.  *sigh*  Sadly, it took me entirely too long to figure out that I can make smoothies about just as easy in my food processor.  I say about since it doesn't have as much liquid capacity, but apparently my counter tops are willing to hold a bevy of it when it spills out behind my back.

So this morning I finally used up the Bartlett pears from a few weeks back, and put the navel oranges to good use  in my morning version of an Orange Julius.  Those things were my jam as a kid since the entire food court of my local mall consisted of Orange Julius and the Pretzel Hut.  No soft pretzels in my kitchen this morning, but this smoothie definitely checked the box for delicious and healthy!

Pearly Sunny Smoothie

Ingredients:
3 pears, cored and cubed
3 navel oranges, juiced
1 cup almond milk (or milk of your choice, I use Almond Breeze)
1 Tbsp local honey
8 ice cubes

Blend up your pears and orange juice until smooth, then add in your milk, honey and ice and blend until no ice chunks remain.

Yields two full pints/32 ounces.

Green Refresh Smoothie

Anyone else feel like the spinach this week just won't quit?  I used about 3 cups in the Go Green Smoothie, then I tossed 2 handfuls into some Homemade Take-Away Beef With Broccoli, and some how I still had a good 3 cups left this morning for yet another smoothie.  Pretty sure my spinach keeps regenerating.

So this morning I wanted another green smoothie, yet something more refreshing than sweet.  So I grabbed the one pear and the one lemon I had left and thus, the Green Refresh Smoothie was born.  This is the perfect morning wake up, and it would be especially great after a morning workout to get you recharged and give you a nutrient boost.  Other than 1 cup of almond milk and 12 ice cubes, this smoothie is all produce.  And  if you like lemonade, then this one is sure to please!

Green Refresh Smoothie

Ingredients:

12 ice cubes, divided
1 banana, peeled
1 Bartlett pear, cored and cubed
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I used Almond Breeze)
3 cups spinach, washed and stems trimmed
Juice of 1 lemon

In  your blender, add 6 ice cubes, the banana, pear and almond milk.  Blend until ice is fully crushed.  Then add your spinach, and you may need to add it in batches so you're not cramming the blender.  Once the spinach is fully blended, add in your lemon juice and final 6 ice cubes, and blend until the ice is completely crushed.

Serve immediately.  Makes about 2 mason jars (pint sized) full.

Go Green Smoothie

If it's green and in liquid form, I want to drink it.  Go figure.  Doesn't matter that it looks like gnarly baby food, I want to consume it all.  One big problem with most commercially available smoothies though...they put wheat grass in them.  And for me and my gluten-hating system, that's a big no-no.  So if I want a green smoothie, I've got to make it myself.  Who wants grass in their smoothie anyway?!  Leave that for the cows!  So when I saw the massive bundles of spinach this week, I knew exactly what needed to happen first thing Saturday morning.  GREEN SMOOTHIE TIME!  Woot!  Trust me, even with 2-3 cups of spinach you cannot detect the spinach flavor.  I even forced a mason jar full of green goodness on the Mister.  He looked at me suspiciously, gave it a swig and declared it was delicious.  He then proceeded to drink two mason jars full and asked if there was more.  So if you're on a post-holiday smoothie kick, this is the perfect drink to give your body a jolt of wonderfulness and get fueled up for the day ahead.  I still have more spinach left even after this recipe and throwing two handfuls into some Homemade Take-Away Beef with Broccoli, so look for yet another green smoothie recipe to follow in the days to come.

Go Green Smoothie

Ingredients:
16 ice cubes, divided
1 pint strawberries, tops trimmed and quartered
1 1/2 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I use Almond Breeze, you can use any milk of your choice, but the almond milk gives you a nice added protein boost)
2 Bartlett pears, cored and cubed
Juice of 1 navel orange
1 tsp local honey (you can also use agave or maple syrup)
2-3 cups spinach, well rinsed and stems trimmed

Into your blender, add 8 of the ice cubes, the strawberries and almond milk.  Blend on high until ice is fully crushed and strawberries are blended.  Add in pears, navel orange juice and honey, and blend those down as well.  Next add your spinach, and you'll likely have to blend these down in batches to make sure you have enough room in the blender.  Blend until completely smooth.  You'll likely have some noticeable green bits no matter how long you try to blend it, and that's okay, you won't be able to taste them.  Then add in your remaining 8 ice cubes and blend until ice is fully crushed.

Serve immediately.  Made 4 mason jars full.

If You Must Poach...Poach Pears!

This past Valentine's Day I poached pears for the very first time, and maybe it was the effects of the great cough meds I was on for pneumonia, but this recipe I created on the fly turned out fantastic.  Pretty much I never want to eat a pear ever again unless it has gone to a red wine jacuzzi for an hour or two.  In fact, I want to go to the red wine jacuzzi with them.  I think poached would be a good look for me.  So whether you're planning a romantic date night at home, or you're just looking to dazzle your dinner guests, this is an elegant yet surprisingly simple recipe that will have your taste buds ooo'ing and ahh'ing with delight.

Red Wine Poached Pears with a Spiced Chocolate Drizzle

Ingredients:

2 firm, green pears (I used just slightly unripe Bartlett pears)
lemon juice
1/2 bottle bold red wine, I used a Cabernet
6 Tbsp sugar
4 Tbsp local honey
5 whole cloves
1 vanilla bean, sliced in half and seeds scraped out
1 heaping tsp blood orange zest (or other citrus)
Juice of 1 blood orange (or equivalent of other citrus, about 1/8 cup)
4 whole black peppercorns
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips (okay probably more than 1/4 cup, let's be real here)

Peel pears, preserving the stems and slice off a small part of the bottom to create a flat surface.  Squeeze a bit of lemon juice over them to keep the flesh from discoloring.

In a medium sized sauce pan, heat wine, sugar, honey, cloves, vanilla bean and seeds, orange zest, orange juice, peppercorns and cinnamon over high heat.  Stir continually until sugar is dissolved.  Reduce heat to keep at a rolling simmer, and cover pot to allow liquid to continue simmering for about 10 minutes.

Carefully add your pears to the liquid and cook on low heat for 1.5 to 2 hrs, turning occasionally to coat all sides and prevent any side from scorching.  When fully poached the flesh will feel soft on the outside, but should still be firm on the inside, so make sure you don't over cook and create mushy, fall apart pears.

Remove pears from liquid and set aside. Strain liquid through a fine mesh strainer to weed out the peppercorns, cloves, vanilla bean and some of the orange zest.  Return liquid to the pan and bring back up to a simmer.  Allow to simmer and reduce for about 10 minutes.  Then stir in your chocolate and whisk to fully melt and incorporate the chocolate until you have a slightly thick chocolate sauce.

Drizzle sauce over tops of each poached pear and serve immediately.  Serve with a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream for added decadence.

Pear and Lettuce Salad

When it comes to pears, I always seem to forget how versatile they actually are. They're great to just pick up and eat, but they're also delicious in smoothies, cakes and salads. They're always a nice little surprise to find in salads because they're not overly sweet but have that nice crunchy texture and are very juicy.

Ingredients:
⅓ cup pecans or walnuts
¼ cup sugar, divided
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
½ tsp Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, minced
3 tbsp olive oil
4 cups lettuce mix (I used in arugula with green leaf lettuce)
1 pear, peeled, cored and sliced
2oz (60g) crumbled cheese (gorgonzola or feta)
1 avocado, pitted, peeled and sliced
¼ cup thinly sliced green onions

Click through to view the rest of this recipe: http://www.cookingglory.com/salads/pear-and-lettuce-salad/