Pear Slushie

Delish!  That's all there is to say about this cold, lemony pear slushie.
If you have a pear, some orange juice, and a lemon or lime, you probably have all you need to make some refreshing deliciousness of your own.
The website for USA Pears provides you with all you'd ever want to know about pears, including lots and lots of pear recipes.
You'd like a pear slushie, you say?  Excellent choice.
Cheers.

Pear Sauce

If you're an applesauce fan, I'm willing to bet you'd love this pear sauce. 

Just get your hands on six pounds of pears (got way more than that here),

chunk 'em up into a pot of water and lemon juice, then cook for 20 minutes or so before smashing everything up with a potato masher.  Then you add some sugar, vanilla, lemon peel, and salt, cook a bit more, and voila!  A lovely, chunky, lemony potful of pear sauce, which you can ladle into jars and freeze for later.  Yummy.

It is not always, easy, by the way, to tell when pears are ripe.  For those green ones, above, I usually just watch and wait until they turn golden.  But even that is not always foolproof.  Fun fact I found out today from the book Simply in Season (which is crammed with recipes for fruits and vegetables):  Pears are ripe "when the flesh surrounding the stem yields slightly to gentle pressure."  Good to know.

LEMONY PEAR SAUCE

6 lb. pears, peeled and chunked

2 c. water

1/4 c. fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons; save peels for grating)

1/2 c. sugar

2 1/2 t. lemon peel

1 T. vanilla

1/4 t. salt

Combine pears, water, and lemon juice in large pot.  Cover partially and simmer until pears are very soft, about 20 minutes.  Smash with potato masher. 

Stir in sugar, lemon peel, vanilla, and salt.  Cover partially and cook over low heat until mixture is the texture you want (not that long).  You can remove the cover if you want to cook off some of the liquid.  Cool slightly, spoon into jars leaving about one-inch of space if you're going to freeze.  Makes 4 - 5 pints.

 

Fyi, eating pears smothered with hot fudge sauce will help you forget about the other 50 pounds of pears you've got to do something with.  Just sayin'.

 

Roasted Tomatoes

The hunger-inducing aroma of garlic is wafting throughout the house -- waft, waft, waft -- and I can hardly wait to snag a spoonful of these delicious, delicious roasted tomatoes.

I've been roasting our garden tomatoes for the last five years, ever since I first discovered the recipe on Notes from a Cottage Garden blog. 
One of the beauties of roasting tomatoes is that the flavor becomes super concentrated -- the essence of tomato.
Also, since they cook down in volume, three or four pans of tomatoes contract into a couple quart-sized Ziploc bags that can be easily stacked in the freezer, ready to pull out midwinter to amaze your taste buds.  Not to mention  your dinner guests.
We usually serve these over pasta.  But they're pretty delicious just slurped from a spoon.

Check out Notes from a Cottage Garden's roasted tomato recipe here.
Happy roasting.

Hot Fudge Sauce

Raise your hand if you love hot fudge sundaes.
Me, me, me, me, me!
This outstanding recipe is from David Lebovitz's highly entertaining book, The Sweet Life in Paris.  It's a memoir about his life in France, sprinkled with recipes, many of them chocolate.  This particular one came from his friend Nancy Meyers, a Hollywood director and screenwriter, who makes a mean hot fudge sauce.  Not kidding.

So even though we are a tad past National Hot Fudge Sundae Day (July 25), do your sweet tooth a happy little good deed and whip up a batch of this yumminess.
 You will thank me in the morning.

NANCY MEYERS'S HOT FUDGE SAUCE
3 T. butter (I used salted; recipe calls for unsalted)
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa-powder
1/3 c. heavy cream
pinch of salt

Put all ingredients in a small pan; stir over low heat until the butter melts.  Keep cooking and stirring for about three more minutes, until all is melted and smooth.
Can be refrigerated for one week; you can reheat it in the microwave.