Blue cheese, caramelised pear and walnut salad

http://www.pmcmahon.com.au

Photo by Paul Mcmahon Styling by Amanda Talbot

Preparation time: 10 mins
Total time: 15 mins
Serves: 4
Cost per person $3.63
Prices are based on woolworths.com.au Except cheese based on Formaggi Ocello

Ingredients:

Half a kilo of William Bartlet Pears peeled and cored segmented (Oxidizing the pears or letting them turn brown will enhance their sweetness)

50-100g Blue Cheese Tarwin Blue

100g Crushed toasted walnuts

A bag of Aussie salad mix

Half a punnet of heirloom tomatoes roughly chopped

Half a cup of Balsamic vinegar reduced by half

A generous dash of extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

This is a very easy, yet extremely tasty salad. it carries on the pear theme I have been following. The combo of Blue cheese, pears and walnuts is fantastic. I strongly advise buying a nut cracker and filling a bowl with walnuts and placing it on your coffee table.
A snack you will not regret Walnuts are the ultimate brain food stacked full of omega 3.

Heat a pan up with a small knob of butter and a dash of olive oil. Place the pear segments in the pan and caramelize them, all you are doing is bringing the natural sugars to the surface. This is aided by a pinch of sugar also. Use this same pan to reduce your Balsamic vinegar for the salad dressing. Then simply all you have to do is combine the ingredients and then dress the salad how you like, seasoning to taste