This week Erica from Itzy’s Kitchen is hosting the Blogger Secret Ingredient – and she chose pears!  I was very excited because pears are such a delicious fall fruit.  I came up with this salad and it was really good.  I let Bobby taste the dressing before I put it on the make sure it was okay and his mouth dropped – “don’t change anything!” he exclaimed.  So I didn’t.  And here’s the finished recipe…

Pear & Crab Salad

Ingredients

• 1 bosc pear, chopped (centimeter-ish cubes are good)
• 6 ounces of lump crab meat (1 can)
• 2 big handfuls of fresh basil, chopped – maybe 20 leaves?
• 1/3 cup finely chopped white onion
• 1/2 cup shredded cabbage OR chopped celery (or both!  I was out of celery, but that was my original idea – I substituted in cabbage and it was still really good)
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup cashews (optional – I was going to add these at the end and I completely forgot – but they would have been perfect) – or walnuts, or almonds, or your nut of choice!

Dressing

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or vinegar of choice)
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon mustard

Directions

1. To make the dressing, just mix all the dressing ingredients well.
2. For the salad, mix everything but the crab.  Then gently fold the crab in.
3. Pour the dressing over the salad and gently mix them together.  Serve!  Topped with cashews or other nuts would be delicious, especially toasted walnuts or sliced almonds.

I had mine on top of lettuce with some extra pear slices; Bobby had his alone with extra pear slices.  We will definitely be making this again.  Thanks for a great ingredient Erica!

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