Sweet Pear & Apple Salad~Jamie Oliver Friday

This is a delicious and EASY salad to make. Perfect for an autumn side dish, or in my case, dinner. This is the time of year to use very available fresh apples and pears, and we have a lot of apples from our orchard and that 1 perfect pear! This is the only pear to stay til fruition on our small espalier pear tree, and it looked perfect. Well, when it finished ripening inside it proved to taste perfect too. I decided to use it in a Jamie Oliver recipe and I am glad I did. So here is the recipe for Sweet Pear & Apple Salad With Bitter Endive & Creamy Blue Cheese Dressing~ whew, a long title. You will need:

• 4 heads of endive ( a mixture of red and white if possible ) *at $4.99 a pound I decided to choose a different type of endive, a curly leaf endive that was $1.99 per pound, cheaper,more befitting my budget and I mixed it with red lettuce from our garden~k.b.
• 2 good eating apples ( I have a whole tree full to choose from right outside~ k.b.)
• 2 pears ( or 1 perfect pear?k.b.)
• a handful of fresh soft herbs ( chervil, tarragon, parsley-use any one) torn or roughly chopped

• DRESSING:2 ounces strong blue cheese
• 1/4 cup creme fraiche ( or sour cream mixed with whole cream k.b.)
• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra for drizzling
• 4 Tablespoons cider vinegar
• 6 Tablespoons water

"This is an adaptation of an old-school French endive salad. Belgian endive is quite a bitter leaf, and to contrast the bitterness I've used the sweetness of the fruit, the twang of the vinegar and the creamy silkiness of the cheese. I think it is important to make this with good quality apples and blue cheese." J. Oliver "Separate the leaves from the endive ( *let me say here, if you can get good endive reasonably priced it is so worth it and the curly leafed was not what Jamie used, but it was very , very good) then wash and spin them dry. Core your apples and slice them into matchsticks. Core the pears and slice into eighths and if they're a little under-ripe, grill them in a screaming hot griddle pan until lightly charred. If they're perfectly ripe, just place in a large bowl with the apple and most of the herbs." To make your dressing place all your dressing ingredients in a blender and blend for just 15 seconds until smooth. Taste to make sure you've got a little extra acidity in there to cut through the bitterness of the leaves, and season if necessary. Pour three-quarters of the dressing over the salad and toss-I usually dress the salad lightly using the tips of my fingers. Divide them between 4 plates and finish with a little extra virgin olive oil. Lovely with some walnuts crumbled over." J. Oliver I very much liked this salad, it was easy to make and I was able to use fruit from our orchard. I will make this recipe again, and next time I think I will sprinkle walnuts over it. I did not use all of our precious pear in the recipe, I put slices of the pear on the side because the pear was perfectly ripe and in no need of anything to embellish it, just someone to appreciate how very good a perfect pear can taste!