A recipe that won't make you blue

So, a little more than a week ago, I wrote about a vegetarian dinner that Aaron planned. The pan-roasted vegetables were amazing, and the salad he made to go with it was just as delicious. It is another easy, healthy recipe that we plan on making again and again.

This recipe is from the Barefoot Contessa book, "Back to Basics."

Roasted pears with blue cheese

3 ripe but firm Anjou pears
Freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 3 lemons)
3 oz. coarsely crumbled blue cheese, such as Stilton
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup walnut halves, toasted and chopped
1/4 cup apple cider
3 tbsp. port
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 cup olive oil
6 oz. baby arugula
Kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Peel the pears and slice them lengthwise into halves. With a small, sharp paring knife and a melon baller, remove the core and seeds from each pear, leaving a round well for the filling. Trim a small slice away from the rounded sides of each pear half so that they will sit in the baking dish without wobbling. Toss the pears with lemon juice to prevent them from turning brown. Arrange them, core side up, in a baking dish large enough to hold the pears snugly.

Gently toss the crumbled blue cheese, dried cranberries and walnuts together in a small bowl. Divide the mixture among the pears, mounding it on top of the indentation.

In the same small bowl, combine the apple cider, port and brown sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour the mixture over and around the pears. Bake the pears, basting occasionally with the cider mixture, for 30 minutes or until tender. Set aside until warm or at room temperature.

Just before serving, whisk together the olive oil, 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup of the basting liquid in a large bowl. Add the arugula and toss well. Divide the arugula among 6 plates and top each with a pear half. Drizzle each pear with some of the basting liquid, sprinkle with salt and serve.

Cook's notes: We used Bartlett pears instead of Anjou, and we enjoyed them. Use any other kind of pears you might like; for instance, I plan to try French butter pears when they are ripe in the fall. I replaced the port with a bit of cider and a spoonful of cider vinegar. We did not have any arugula on hand, so we substituted some baby spinach we had in the fridge; it turned out incredibly well. If you don't have walnuts, hazelnuts or pecans would be a delicious substitute.