Pear and Dolcelatte to start, with Roasted Veggies and Quinoa to follow ;) Sept 2013

We actually had some pears from our tree in the garden this year, not many, we never have many, which is sad as they are very nice flavoured Williams. Williams pears are tricky to bring to ripeness, they leap from being unripe, hard, unflavoured lumps to fluffy, nasty, slushy, unflavoured lumps in the space of a day at room temperature.

Usually I poach them in their unripe state, as then they are delicious.  But I had a few too many this year, and put the rest in the fridge. Well, what do you know! they ripened perfectly in there, and I managed to have a handful in their prime at the finest juicy non-fluffy ripe stage.

Some got cut up into my morning fruit salad, but I had two left and decided to make a starter of sliced pears, dolcelatte cheese, toasted walnuts and pine nuts, drizzled with Crush lemon dressing.

Blissful!

I followed this with a vegetarian main course, of quinoa, puy lentils and roasted vegetables, garnished with radishes and pomegranate seeds left from my Try Total Challenge harissa chicken the other day.

I used a pack of ready cooked  white and red quinoa from Quinola Mothergrain. I hadn't come across this company before seeing them at Speciality & Fine Food exhibition recently, when they kindly gave me a pack of Express Quinoa to try. It was so easy! I simply put it in a bowl with a drained tin of puy lentils and gave it 2 mins in the microwave. All done and ready to eat!

I mixed in some roasted peppers, courgettes and onions, together with some confit garlic and a little garlic oil, and garnished with sliced radishes and pomegranate seeds. Then sprinkled a little basil infused oil from Scarlett and Mustard - another fabulous find at Speciality & Fine Food - over the top together with a sprinkle of my famous blackberry vinegar, which lifted it all beautifully.

A really good, light yet filling dinner. I should eat like this more often!