Miniature Pear Salads

I am making up for lost time tonight; the holidays have worn me so thin that my cooking, and certainly my cooking-themed blog, have both suffered.

I mentioned, during recent blogging, that I did quite a bit of food preparation for a friend's Christmas party. One other dish I made was an AllRecipes find that satisfied my need to use three pears going to waste in my kitchen. I can't even remember the dish I'd found online that has asked for the damn pears in the first place--a lesson in the importance of bookmarking.

This dish is called "Pear Salad II," but don't let the name mislead you--it's not a big salad; it's several "mini-salads." As I mentioned, I had whole, fresh pears from the produce section, so I didn't use the canned pear halves the recipe called for. I really can't imagine that they would have been good; if you desire to use those because you think canned pears are juicier, believe me, chopped pears with mayonnaise smeared on top of them are juicy enough. I actually quite enjoyed this dish. My dad has grown pears my whole life, and I have many childhood memories of eating sliced pears in Robards with him, just minutes after we'd picked them. But it's important to note that pears have a very unique, and almost tangy, taste. And, just because someone likes pear jelly, that doesn't mean that they'd want to eat a whole pear--think, is grape jam the same as eating fresh grapes? No.

I thought this salad was very sweet and pleasing, and I bet it'd be very refreshing in the spring or early summer. My boyfriend saw it after it was already prepared and said, "Are those apples?" so I labeled it "PEAR SALAD" for the party. I overheard a few people passing by the party's buffet say, "Pears?" incredulously. Apparently, I might as well have written, "RATTLESNAKES" or "WORM DROPPINGS" on a card and attempted to serve that. Meat-eaters get finicky about the strangest things...since when is a freshly peeled and seasoned pear more gross than a slab of red meat?

Never mind the omnivores, my veggie friends...this dish would make a nice little snack or lunch for yourself sometime!