PEAR BREAD!!!

Oh YUM!!! :-D
Well, I made a small dent in the Asian pears that I had left from the Apple Festival last month....can you believe how long they've lasted?  I lost a few, or a few halves of them, but that's it!  I spent the other day chopping up the rest of what was left.....

What did I say I had....12 cups of chopped pears?!  That's a LOT of pear stuff to make! :-D
Everyone has been clamoring for the pear bread since we got the pears, so that's what I started with.....

This recipe comes from the Hometown Cooking in New England book I posted about a few posts ago....can you read the recipe?  It makes one loaf, so I doubled it -- I always freeze one loaf to take out when the first one is gone....it goes quick!! :-D

I creamed the butter and sugar together, and added the eggs and vanilla (I always add it to my wet ingredients in the beginning of my recipes, even when it calls for it at the end - does it really matter??)....

Then I mixed together the dry ingredients.....

That's the nutmeg, it's the only spice added, and it gives the bread such a delicate flavor with the pears!
Then, I add half the flour mix to the creamed butter mix, blend, and add the buttermilk or yogurt (I used yogurt this time)......

....blend it in, and then add the rest of the flour mix.
After that's blended, stir in the chopped pears.....

Even the batter is delicious! (I licked one of the beaters!! haha!)
Pour the batter into a greased/sprayed loaf pan.....

Remember, I doubled the recipe, so I have two loaves.
They bake for an hour at 350, although mine come out the best at 55 minutes....

If only you could smell them.....! :-D  (SORRY!!  I couldn't resist!)
After cooling in the pan for 15 minutes, turn them out onto the cooling rack to completely cool.....OR....cut them up and eat them right away.....

We put butter on it, and it is YUMMY!  This will be gone tomorrow!! :-D
Now I just have to make the Caramel Pear Preserves with the rest of the chopped pears.....!

I also played around with my new "old" box today -- this is my worst part!  I'm just no good at it! :-P
Here are two things I came up with so far.....

....hmmm....I have that berry garland from a few years ago - I haven't used it in a while because it got dusty and I can't for the life of me figure out how to dust it!  Whatever I do, it hardly gets any dust off, but the "berries" drop off like crazy -- I think I lost a handful today just trying to softly brush it with the wooly duster on the table! :-P  And I love the candle in there, but I wish there was a way to hide the cord.....
I know what AMY thinks I'm going to put in there.....are you thinking of my gingerbread ornaments I just made???? LOL  You are absolutely right, but I think it's a little too early to have them out....I'd rather wait until it's closer to Thanksgiving.  I'm thinking they would look great around Christmas in there with some pine tree (or cedar!) branches!!
Here was another arrangement.....

That's a little better, but NOT great.  *Sigh!*  I'm soooo bad at this! :-P  The yellow flowers are mum branches that broke off some plants at Walmart two weeks ago when I was there.  They were just laying on the ground to die, so I grabbed them and hung them up to dry - I really like them in there, too!  Hey, maybe a great little freebie!! LOL  This is how I have left it for now....maybe I'll come up with something different tomorrow....hmmm....!  I need something under it too, so I'll find that tomorrow too!

I'll have some more cooking to share tomorrow, although I wonder if I should be posting every day.....wouldn't that be annoying for anyone reading my blog once a week or less??  Who wants to catch up on 6+ posts all the time?  I guess if something is TOO exciting, I'll just have to post it, readers beware! LOL ^-^