A Lovely Salad for Autumn and the Holidays

 
 I am sharing with you a lovely salad for Autumn.

"Autumn" is in the title of recipes containing those

fruits (like the pear) and vegetables found during the

Autumn months. However, this salad is equally great for the

Holidays because of the beauty of the red dried cranberries.

 

This salad uses a fresh pear but any of the pears are okay to use.

The one I choose usually depends on which variety of pear 

is on sale.  I will admit that I do cross my fingers and

hope the Bosc variety is on sale because I like the visual

of the brown-ish skin left on the cubes of pear in the salad.

I wish for the Anjou variety for the holidays for its bright green color.

Keep in mind to buy the pears a few days ahead of time

just in case they will need to ripen.  For the salad, we

want the pears just ripe - not mushy.  Cut them and add them
to the salad just before serving so they won't turn brown.

 

There really isn't a recipe for this salad.

Sometimes I use a Baby Spring lettuce mix

and sometimes I use only chopped Romaine lettuce.

I made this salad recently with the Romaine lettuce along side

a French Onion-Bacon Tart. Sorry, no photos. A flavor tip
when making salads is to make sure you season your lettuces.
Just sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper over lettuces in the
bowl prior to adding whatever add-ins you are going to use.

The "add-ins" to this salad are the pear cubes, pecans,

dried cranberries, crumbled bacon, and feta! Sometimes I
crumble the feta and sometimes I leave them as small cubes. 

For the dressing, a Poppy Seed salad dressing is drizzled over the
salad followed by a drizzle of basic Balsamic Vinaigrette. I make my own
Balsamic Vinaigrette but you can buy a bottled one as well.  The
ratio is approximately 70% Poppy Seed dressing and 30% Balsamic
Vinaigrette. Mix well to combine and then taste a lettuce leaf. 
You will be pleasantly surprised how delicious this is.

I "pear-ed" this salad with a Broccoli Chicken Casserole

which is a great recipe that can be used with leftover

Thanksgiving turkey.  That recipe can be found HERE. 

I thought this little plant of

fresh "Turkey Seasoning" herbs was genius.

"Flavorful herbs grown with your holiday turkey in mind."

"Cut what [we] need for seasoning and the plant continues to grow."

I bought it at the grocery store and it came with the

cute ceramic turkey on a stick.  I will be giving it to

my daughters on Thanksgiving as a hostess gift. 

 

I will be linking this week with

The Tablescaper's Seasonal Sundays

Stone Gable's On The Menu Mondays

Rattlebridge Farm's Foodie Fridays

 

Thank you for stopping by and visiting.

 

Fondly,

~Karen