Colette’s pear salad

I’ve been treated to many delicious meals during our visit in SA, of which this pear salad is one. My good friend Colette, whipped this up one hot afternoon after coming back from our “hunt for all things old”.

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Colette’s pear salad

  • 2 firm pears
  • mixed salad leaves
  • handful of peppery rocket leaves
  • walnuts
  • parmesan cheese
  • butter
  • brown sugar
  • white balsamic vinegar
  • lemon juice
  1. Wash and cut the pears into eight parts.
  2. Heat some butter with a spoonful of sugar in a pan, add the pears and sauté over high heat until nicely caramelized.
  3. Spoon into a dish and leave aside. Add the walnuts to the same pan and brown quickly over high heat. Set aside
  4. Deglaze the pan with some white balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
  5. Arrange the salad leaves on 2 plates, spoon the hot pears on the salad and sprinkle the walnuts. Spoon the deglazed pansauce over the salad and finish off with some shaved parmesan cheese, a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of pepper.
  6. For a more substantial meal: Add some crisp fried parma ham/bacon, or goats cheese, or some flaked white fish to the salad.

                                                        Serves two

Finish off this late afternoon meal, much later, with tea and a freshly baked cupcake that you’ve bought on your way home at the sweet deli just around the corner.

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Trudie’s lemon squares

Whenever I make these lemon squares, I think of my sister, who is quite a few years older than me. The day she got married and took off with her husband, leaving me as the last one behind at home, felt like the end of the world to me at 15 years old. Then I got to visit them and it all changed when she served up a plate filled with these delicacies. From then on, I couldn’t wait to go visit. She always had something new and interesting and exciting going on in her house and life and her tins were filled with lemon squares and cookies of all sorts and the most delicious dried peaches straight from the farm….sounds like perhaps the main attraction for visiting! At some stage I inherited her recipe and it has become a favourite in our family too and of everybody else that “inherits ” it along the way.

It is a non – baking cookie/biscuit and can be kept in the fridge for a long time, if you’re so lucky to have any left to last that long.

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Trudie’s lemon squares

  • 2 packets of  butter biscuits (Petit beurre)
  • 250 g butter
  • 1 can of sweet condensed milk
  • 250 ml desiccated coconut
  • lemon juice and zest

Lemon icing:

  • About 20g butter
  • 450ml icing sugar
  • lemon zest and juice to taste
  1. Melt the butter over low heat and add the condensed milk.
  2. Stir in some lemon zest and juice to taste and mix well.
  3. Add the coconut.
  4. Break in the biscuits and mix well until the biscuits are finely broken up en well coated.
  5. Press into a greased lamington tin, 24 x 34 x 2cm.
  6. Leave to cool down completely or place in fridge.
  7. Combine the ingredients for the lemon icing and mix to a smooth icing.
  8. Cut in squares and decorate with some candied lemon and lime zest.

Serves about 48 squares

This is an entry for Christmas cookies from around the world 2007, here at Susan from Foodblogga.

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