Pear Heaven

   Two weekends ago the pears were ready to harvest at my boyfriend's house. He has several trees and they are loaded this year. We picked 6 five gallon buckets and didn't even make a dent. He sent 4 buckets home with me with the intention of giving 2 to my friend. I kind of had to force them on my friend. I called and told her I had 2 buckets of pears for her. Oh she said, let me think about it. Well I wasn't going to deterred. I showed up at her house and left them there.
   Some friends came down from Portland this weekend and we prepared dinner on Saturday night. Of course there needs to be dessert. Pears came to mind......Given that between us we have four 5 gallon buckets full that are starting to ripen. I googled around for pear pie/tart recipes. Nothing specifically jumped out so I just kind of made up the filling with a rustic shaped crust. Voila a beautiful pear tart appeared from the oven:

   So that used exactly 6 pears. This does not put a very big dent in the 5 gallon buckets. I had left my buckets in my garage and they were starting to rapidly ripen. So I laid them out on my dining room table and am on the hunt for a pear chutney recipe. I also will make pear bread (similar to zucchini bread). More later.