Pear & Blue Cheese salad

Well, the school year got off to a fantastic start.  However, on the fourth day of school, I dislocated my shoulder.  Yes, you read that right, on just the FOURTH DAY OF SCHOOL!!!  In the process of dislocating it, I tore the ligaments from the bone of the front of my shoulder, some from the back of my shoulder, fractured the back side of my socket, and lengthened the ligaments in the joint.  I've since had surgery to correct it and will start physical therapy next month.  It's been an incredibly frustrating process and I'm dealing with doing things with just one arm.  But I've been blessed by tremendous support from my family and my work family.  :)  So my cooking for now is extremely limited but we are still eating home-cooked, wholesome meals.  It may not be fancy, but I have missed blogging and I am committed to getting back to it.

Over the summer, Dusty and I ate at some "fancy" restaurants.  You know, the kind of places where they don't have kiddie menus or crayons or color sheets.  On one of our trips. we went to RDG Bar Annie with my mom, my brother and my sister.  One of the dishes in the four course meal we enjoyed was a pear, endive, and blue cheese salad.  I did not like blue cheese at all before this salad but I stepped out of my comfort zone and I was truly surprised.  I loved the creamy texture and tang of the blue cheese.  That combined with the sweet crunchy pear and delicious salad greens, and I was in heaven.  Salads at my house up until this past week have been pretty boring.  Salad greens, grated cheddar cheese, bagged croutons, and bottled salad dressing.  With this salad, I'm kicking up the bar a bit.  :)  And I invite you to take a step out of your comfort zone and try a new salad this week!

Ingredients:  (enough for 2 nice sized side-salads)
5 cups of mixed spring greens
2 Tbls. italian dressing
1/2 pear, peeled, cored, and diced
2 Tbls. chopped walnuts
2 Tbls. blue cheese

Preparation instructions:

1. Toss mixed greens with Italian dressing in a bowl.  Divide between two plates
2. Peel pear.  Cut in half (reserve remaining half for another salad).  Dice pear into small pieces.  Sprinkle pear pieces on top of mixed greens.
3. Sprinkle walnuts and blue cheese on top of pears and mixed greens.  
4. Abandon blue cheese fears and dig in!!!