Roasted Pear and Spinach Salad

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Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3 (ZReboot) recipe. I designed this pear recipe to go with meat dishes. If you carve some turkey, slice some ham or grill up a pork tenderloin to go with this salad you’ll have a full meal. This is a great leftover idea for the holidays. Healthy too.

Servings: Serves 4. Can be doubled.

Ingredients:

• 1 handful of baby spinach per person
• 4 heaping tablespoons of boursin cheese (garlic and herb flavor). You can substitute goat cheese or blue cheese. Your choice.
• 2 cups of roasted walnut halves. You can roast the walnuts while you roast the pears.
• olive oil spray
• 3 Tbl of balsamic vinegar
• 3 Tbl of extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp of Dijon mustard
• one teaspoon of fresh thyme, minced, or if you use dry thyme, use half that amount and crush it with your mortar and pestle
• one quarter teaspoon of black pepper
• one light grating of sea salt
• 4 ripe pears, washed

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Put your walnuts in a roasting pan and spray lightly with olive oil. In a small mixing bowl put in vinegar, olive oil, mustard, thyme, pepper, and sea salt. Mix well. Slice each pear into 4 pieces. Gently remove the stem and take a sharp knife to cut out the seeds and fibers in the middle of the pear. No need to peel the pears. Place the pears in a roasting pan. Brush the pears thoroughly with half of the dressing mixture. Put the pears in the oven and along side put in your walnuts. Roast pears for 6 minutes and then brush them with the second half of the dressing mixture. Roast for 6 – 8 minutes more until pears are soft. You can check by poking with a sharp knife. Remove the walnuts and the pears.

Place a handful of spinach on each plate (you are in control of portion size). Break up the cheese and sprinkle it over the spinach. Boursin is gooey but you can break off little blobs of cheese. They can be messy. Place the hot pears on top of the cheese and spinach. This will melt the cheese and wilt some of the spinach. It’s almost reminiscent of an exotic creamed spinach with these joyous pears on top. So lovely. Sprinkle the walnuts around and serve.

Enjoy,

Cheers!