I love cooking in the summer. Thanks to the variety of beautiful fresh produce, cooking and eating come naturally to me during that season. When the cool weather begins I have to think a little harder. I’ve been seeing pears every time I go to the grocery store the past few weeks and I started thinking of ways I’d like to use them. I’m not the most creative cook, so I looked to the internet for inspiration. I decided I’d like to make pears with blue cheese and walnuts.
I found a recipe from Ina Garten on Food Network called Roasted Pears with Blue Cheese. I like that she adds dried cranberries (but opted out this time). I also noticed that Ina peels the pears before roasting them. I’ll try this in the future, but for today I didn’t care about the texture. Her recipe also calls for port wine and apple cider, but I wanted to keep my pears simple.Overall, the recipe looks great, and I’ll definitely try her pears in the future — but I wanted to try my own ideas first.
Then I found Melissa Phy’s Baked Pears with Blue Cheese, Walnuts and Honey. I liked that she used thyme, so I added thyme to my recipe.
I used two very ripe bartlett pears, natural local honey and organic black walnuts from Mom’s Organic Market. I also used this fabulous Grand Noir blue cheese imported from Germany, voted Best of Class at the World Championship Cheese Contest 2016 – I found this one at Harris Teeter. See if you can find a small wedge and give it a try. I’m a big fan of Saint Agur blue and I like this as well — maybe a little better.
I cut the pears in half. Salt, pepper, thyme. P.S. ladies, if you’re expecting your man to come home any minute, don’t leave nuts in a cute little bowl. Mine ate half the nuts before I could stop him! No problem, everything worked out fine. I added the nuts and cooked the pears at 350 for 30 minutes. Just as they were starting to smell nice, the timer went off.
Looking good. I topped with blue cheese and popped them back into the oven for 10 minutes.
Finally, I drizzled them with a little honey.
Verdict: Underwhelming. They were not as sweet as I would have liked. Disliked the skin. I guess Ina knew what she was doing!
What I’d do next time: Remove skin, add a little sugar and butter before baking.
Pro tip: The next day I had one for breakfast. I added a little butter and sugar before I put it into the microwave and it turned out perfect!
Give Me Some Yum! 