I heart Pears

Just this past week I came to the rather startling realization that pears, when ripe, are wicked awesome. See, I've been trying to eat more fresh fruit of late, as I'm trying to lose weight. My usual fruit of choice tends to be oranges, but due to uncharacteristically low temperatures in citrus-producing states, the prices on oranges have gotten pretty high lately. So seeing as how pears were on sale, I bought some and have been eating 2 to 3 a day ever since. It's not like I've fallen in love again or anything, since as a kid, when I was eating fresh fruit with regularity, I saw them as the dumpy stepsister of apples. I've never really liked apples either, mostly due to the texture- the flavor is good, but biting into one sends shivers up my spine, and in my younger years I always felt the same about pears. But it turns out that either (a) shipping has gotten much better over the years, or (b) my mother bought pears at the wrong time, since the pears I've gotten hooked on are a pleasure to eat, firm but tender. And juicy as hell too- you don't so much chew a really good pear as you take a bite out of it and then half-eat-half-drink it. If you don't make at least a few little slurping sounds while eating a pear, chances are you're doing it incorrectly.

Anyway, as a way to (a) try something new for dinner, and (b) integrate pears into more aspects of my diet, I decided to experiment with a new salad. So I tried the following combination:

Romaine hearts
Cucumber (for that light but unmistakable cool flavor)
Chicken breast (Grilled, then chilled- I don't like the effect of hot chicken on cold lettuce)
A small handful of dried cranberries
Half a pear, in bite-sized chunks (not too small- too many slices and you lose a lot of juice)

I placed the above ingredients in a bowl in that order, then topped with some balsamic vinaigrette and let it soak a minute or so before tossing. And lo and behold, it was actually quite tasty. The pears and the dressing complimented each other nicely, and the tartness of the cranberries gave the salad some added flair. And of course chicken goes with damn near anything, so I wasn't too worried about that. I suppose some other dressings might work with this salad, although I wouldn't recommend a sweeter one- pears don't need any help. Heck, if you're a dressing hater like Adam, I'm sure that if you were to use canned pears instead of fresh you could top the salad with the juice (provided it was actual pear juice rather than syrup). All that was missing was an extra crunch- some sliced almonds, perhaps?

Anybody else know of any good non-dessert recipes that include pears?