The pears are coming in by the bucket-fulls and we are reveling in all their juicy, sweet glory. We have 11 trees in total with 6 different varieties, but some are fairly young and this is the first year I allowed them to keep their fruit.
One of the new ones we got to try this year is an Asian pear called Shinko (pictured above). It is by far my absolute favorite. It is ridiculously juicy, as all the Asian pears are, but it it has a touch of tart to counteract the sugary sweetness. I never though I could wax poetic about a fruit, but this pear is amazing. Needless to say we will be adding a few more of these to the orchard.
Our favorite of the European pears is probably the Vermilion Bartlett, but some in the house are saying they prefer the Leconte. Either way, we are dehydrating lots of these for dried pears to snack on later, eating them fresh and baking them into beautiful things that go particularly well with vanilla ice cream...
...Such as the above pear pandowdy made using the apple pandowdy recipe from Rustic Fruit Desserts (Love this book.). Dreamy, I tell you.
Happy Sunday!
