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.

Spinach Lasagna in a crock pot

I will admit that I am one lazy cook. Its hard to imagine that I used to cook for a living, but that was a looong time ago. I started looking around online for a lasagna recipe that could be done in a crock pot~my favorite way to cook. I found a recipe that looked pretty good, but it was a meat recipe. I really wanted a meatless lasagna, so after a few tries tweaking the original recipe I came up with this one. You might need to tweak this recipe a couple of times to get it right for you. The noodles do not get cooked for this recipe, the crock pot doesn't heat up the house (nice during the summertime swelter of Tennessee) and there are leftovers for the next day or two. Three things that make this recipe one of my favorites.

Here's my way and what you need:

~About 40 ounces of spaghetti sauce. I found a sauce I like in a 27 ounce can and I use 1 1/2 cans per lasagna, freezing the other half can for the next batch. I like a saucy lasagna...
~1/3 cup water
~8 uncooked lasagna noodles
~15 ounce container ricotta cheese, whole or low fat, doesn't matter
~2 eggs lightly beaten
~4 cups mozzarella (at least 4 cups, add more if you'd like)
~1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
~10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach-thawed and squeezed of all water

Combine sauce and water, set aside

Cheese mixture: combine ricotta cheese, beaten eggs, 3 cups mozzarella, 1/4 cup Parmesan and spinach, mix well.

Lightly oil bottom and sides of crockpot. Spread about 3/4 cup sauce in bottom of pot. Take 4 lasagna noodles and break into 2-3 inch pieces. Place noodles on sauce layer.

Spread all of the cheese mixture on top of the first layer of noodles. Spread another 3/4 cup of sauce on top of cheese mixture.

Break the remaining 4 noodles into pieces and layer on top of the second sauce layer. Dump the remainder of the sauce on top of the second noodle layer. Top with the remaining cup of mozzarella and 1/4 cup of Parmesan.

Turn crock pot to high for 1 hour.
After one hour turn crock pot to low for an additional 2 1/2-3 hours-depending on how fast your pot cooks. After cooking complete, allow to sit an additional 1/2 hour covered before serving. This 1/2 hour allows the lasagna to set up a little bit better. Enjoy!