Bacon Wrapped Goat Cheese Stuffed Baked Pears

I was recently gifted pears, which is interesting because I'm not so much a pear eater.  I consulted google to determine what I could do with these pears that would possibly appease my fruit-hating palate, and lo-and-behold....bacon was the answer!  Big surprise.  This recipe had the makings of all the things I love: bacon and goat cheese.  The pear became an afterthought, which was fine by me. 

Begin by preheating your oven to 350 F, halve your pears, and remove the pits, leaving a nice bowl for your cheese.  Place the pear halves on a cookie sheet, fill the scooped out insides with herbed goat cheese, and wrap with raw bacon.  So maybe the recipe calls for a single slice of bacon, but obviously that wasn't enough, so I went for two. 

Drizzle the pears with a little olive oil and salt and pepper and bake for about 30 minutes (more or less depending on pear size). 

Once done, serve over a bed of greens.  I used mesclun, but you can also use arugula or whatever you prefer.  We made a mild vinaigrette to drizzle over the lettuce before we topped with the pears and drizzled with a little honey.  The juices from the pears, the fat from the bacon, and the sweetness of the honey actually combined pretty well with the greens and cheese and made for a surprisingly delicious pear salad...though that could be all the bacon's doing. 

I had some leftovers so I reheated the pears in the toaster oven to re-crisp the bacon, and one morning I served this for breakfast over a fried egg.  Not bad for a fruit. 

Black Bean, Corn, and Tomato Salad

This salad fix I seem to be on is getting a little out of hand (yes, 2 salads constitutes a fix).  This one was made for a picnic and was primarily consumed atop chips, like a salsa.  It's one of my go-to picnic dishes because it's quite simple.

Combine 1 can black beans, 2 diced fresh tomatoes, 1 cup corn kernals, 3/4 cup diced red onion, and 1/2 cup loosely packed chopped cilantro.  Now again, I never measure these recipes, so that's approximate.  Add more or less of the items you like. 

For the dressing I add a little cumin and coriander (probably about 1 to 2 tsp worth of each) and fresh lime and lemon juices.  Just enough to coat the salad but without leaving a puddle of juice in the bottom (probably 2 to 4 tbsp total citrus juice).  And that's it!  Toss and serve.

Pro tip - I do find that the juice from the can of beans and the freshly chopped tomatoes can accumulate in a less than desirable fashion.  To deal with that, I poured the beans and chopped tomatoes into a sieve while I cut the onions and cilantro.  I was amazed by how much liquid dripped into the sink, but I find that the extra five to ten minutes I allowed for drainage really improved the overall taste and texture of this salad later.

Quinoa Salad with Shrimp

What?  Salad for dinner again? Yeah, don't worry, I'm not turning healthy, as evidenced by the bacon overload.  But the first time I sampled quinoa it was in a salad and I was sold, so rather than serve it as a side dish, I present to you quinoa as the main event.  Perhaps this would make a great lunch salad.

This one is pretty simple.  As you may be able to tell, I was lacking in the lettuce department, so it's heavy on the quinoa, light on the greens.  I cooked the quinoa in chicken broth and threw the raw shrimp and frozen corn kernels into the pot to cook together.  I created a dressing with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and cilantro.  To that I added the cooked quinoa, shrimp, and corn and mixed to coat.  I added the lettuce, chopped red onion, herbed goat cheese, and of course the crumbled bacon.  And there you have it.  Add quinoa to any of your favorite salads and you'll get a nice texture addition.  Though you probably want to add a lot less than I did if you're just using it as an accent flavor.  

Shrimp, Bacon, and Goat Cheese Salad

It apparently came as a shock to most of my friends and family that i made a salad for dinner last night.  Ok, it shocked me too.  But i have so much leftover lettuce that's going bad!  So what do you add to vegetables to make them taste better?  Bacon! 

I'm pretty sure you don't need my help knowing how to make a salad, but this is what I put in it:  shrimp (poached like in the previous blog entry), bacon, diced shallot, corn, and a mix of fresh baby greens.  I made the dressing with 2 parts extra virgin olive oil to 1 part red wine vinegar, and whisked with salt and pepper and some freshly chopped basil.  Pour the dressing over the salad, toss, and at the end add the goat cheese and toss once again.  (The goat cheese is what makes the dressing in the above picture look more like a ranch, because I tossed it too much and it lost it's individual clumps...still delicious though.)

The magic touch, however, was when I scooped the bacon onto the lettuce, I didn't drain first on paper towels.  That way some residual bacon grease ended up wilting the greens, and in my opinion really improving their taste.