skip to main |
skip to sidebar
What a lovely way for Mother Nature to celebrate my favorite holiday: the sun is shining, but there's a slight crisp to the air and a gentle breeze blowing through the leaves that are starting their yearly wardrobe change. I started the day by harvesting from the garden. The carrots were ready to be pulled, as were handfuls of green beans and a few lemon cucumbers -- YUM!
We had an early celebration this past Friday, by going to our favorite fair, the Common Ground Fair. It's THE state's biggest and bestest agricultural fair. The weather that day was gorgeous, too, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I'd been stashing a bit of money here and there, leading up to the day, so we were able to buy things we'd had our hearts set-on for years past without any feelings of budget-guilt. I bought myself a pair of hand carders, a drop spindle and a bag of gorgeous Romney wool. Hubby bought two American Chestnut trees which are now planted in the front field. Plus we stuffed ourselves with organic goodness: loaded sausage dogs, french fries and strawberry shortcakes -- again, YUM!! It was a fantastic day.
The latest pear-cookery comes in the form of cookies! Using this recipe makes a gently-sweet pear oatmeal cookie. The recipe says it makes 4 1/2 dozen cookies, but my batch made almost 7 dozen! I definitely have to make them bigger next time... having them mouth-pop-in-able is toooo much temptation to keep eating them!
Yes, yes, I'll admit that's a bit of a b@st@rdization of a Disney song, but I get bouncy and singy when I'm cooking... and I am kinda corny, so that's what came from my mouth while I was mixing up a new recipe for pear bread. After two weeks of "plumming it," making everything I could think of from the explosion of plums my mum's tree had, it's nice being able to switch to something new. Now the pears are ripe and I'm on the hunt for new pear recipes!
Yesterday I started the pear-fest with a pear bread recipe I found at allrecipes.com. Of course, I ALWAYS change recipes, according to our likes and dislikes, allergies and so forth, so the link is to the recipe I started with, but here it is with my changes:
INGREDIENTS:
3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 T cinnamon
1/2 c vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 c sugar
2 t vanilla extract
2 ripe bananas
2 c pear puree
2 c peeled, chopped pears
(Suggestion: Because it takes a little while longer than dumping ingredients into a bowl, I suggest preparing the pears first.)
-- Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon in bowl.
-- In separate bowl, mix oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla, bananas and pear puree.
-- Hand-stir chopped pears into wet mix, then add wet mix to dry, stirring until just mixed.
-- Grease & flour TWO 8x5x3 loaf pans and add batter.
-- Bake in preheated 325 degree F oven for 1 hour & 15 minutes. Cool before removing from pans.
It's a super yummy, light tasting, moist bread, very similar to a banana bread (even had I not added bananas *chuckle*). Next time (and there WILL be a next time!), I think I'll lessen the oil just a touch more, only use one banana, and add another cup of puree, to give it a little boost on the pear flavor. As soon as the loaves were cooled, I wrapped the second for the freezer -- keeping temptation at bay -- but oooh wasn't this one yummy to dig into!
Hi there -- glad you could visit! After dragging my heels for a few years of friends trying to get me to start a blog, I finally decided to give it a go. It won't be anything glamorous, nor will it be daily posted to, but I hope you find interest in whatever you read and come back often. :)
I'm a simple country housewife who takes care of her husband and a houseful of critter-kids. We have two dogs, two cats and five ferrets, plus lots of wildlife I spoil as often as I can. We're working on filling in the "spare nooks and crannies" with skin-kids, too, but that's a story for another day. Photography, cooking, crafting and reading are my four biggest hobbies. More than likely, my posts will include one (or all) of those topics.
For now, though, I leave you with this short introduction and the hope you come back someday. I've got a loaf of handmade bread rising on top of the fridge and I can smell the pear bread in the oven is almost done. It's a new recipe -- hopefully I'll remember to tell you about it next time. Til then... :)
