Its time for pears!!

A few weeks ago my husband came home with a box of locally grown pears. He had stopped to help a man resecure the load on this truck and in return the man gave up these pears from his Granny's tree. Well, honestly, I don't have a clue of what to do with them all--I don't can and there is just my husband and myself--the kitties don't want anything to do with them. Except to maybe roll them around the floor. So, I thought to find some suggestions on Etsy's Etc forum. It seemed like the logical place to ask for all kinds of advice.

I got lots of great suggestions and links to recipes that looked super yummy--but I'm really lazy in the kitchen. I really don't like to be there very long, except in the winter. I enjoy cooking in the winter. Its still too nice outside for cooking.

The first suggestion that caught my eye was to bake some like apples. Great! I got the crockpot recipe book out and followed the instructions for baked apples:

2 Tbsp raisins

1/4 cup sugar

6-8 medium apples, washed and cored

1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbsp butter

Mix raisins and sugar (I used brown sugar) fill center of apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon and dot with butter. Put in crock pot, add 1/2 cup water. Cover, cook on low 7-9 hours or high 2 1/2-3 1/2 hours. These turned out really good.

The next pear treat I tried was Pear Crisp. HeatherScent suggested this recipe and honestly, I just love the way that she shared it~it just made me want to try it. So, with her permission, here it is:

Oh, I suppose you want the recipe!

Wash, peel and cut up a bunch of pears, enough to cover the bottom of a 9" square baking pan. Grease the pan first. Use REAL butter, please, not cooking spray or margarine or any of that funny business. Butter is the right thing to do.

In a bowl, mix 3/4 cup brown sugar, 3/4 cups rolled oats, 1/3 cup softened butter and 1/3 cup of flour.

By the way, I'm guessing at all of these measurements, since I don't actually measure when I cook. But even if thy are off, how wrong can it be? It's sugar and butter, that always works out nicely.

Mix that up nice and then dump it on top of the pears. Sprinkle with a whole bunch o cinnamon, and a little nutmeg too, if you're a nutmeg kinda gal. I'm not.

Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes (Oops, you should have pre-heated the oven. I forgot to tell you that). Serve it with real ice cream, for goodness sakes. Don't even think about putting Cool Whip on it.

This was really good! Hubby and I both enjoyed it, it was quick and easy and tasty.

We've gone through this box of pears, there is only about 6 left and they are now soft enough for table use. I really need to send him out again and see what other kind of fruits he might be able to bring home.