M&S Caramelised Pear, Walnut and Stilton Salad ... making it yourself?

[MrsSpoon]

This looks amazing on the ad, went in to look for it today (DS1 is having a friend over tomorrow and I thought this could be my little treat with a glass of wine as I will probably have earned it by then ). However it is a complete and utter rip off! The salad costs about £3.50 and seems to consist of two lettuce leaves, a teeny pot of crumbled stilton, sachet of dressing, handful of walnuts, a few chunks of pear. Figured it would be easy enough to make myself.

Thinking of a Cos lettuce, some stilton and walnuts obviously. However wondering how to go about caramelising the pear, in a pan with butter and brown sugar? Or is there a way to do this without the butter (save on a few calories)?

Picked up a Balsamic and Blueberry dressing whilst in M&S but not sure if this would really be the thing to go with this salad so dressing suggestions would be welcome.

No foodies about this afternoon?

Is it only me who thinks this salad looks tasty?

Thinking on it, it has something red in it on the advert, tomatoes? Anyone know?

Dried Cranberries got some of those.

Anybody?

I think it sounds lovely. I'd just poach the pear in a little sugared water and see what happens (sorry, no cooking skills here)

Not sure about the dressing, balsamic yes, but not sure about the bluberry, taste it and see if you like it.

Sounds yummy!

Let us know how you get on

This is yummy-had it for lunch with a friend last week (right amount for 2 with melted camembert)
It was the dressing that made it really nice, the pears were ok but could have done without them. Dont remember red things-sorry!

I have a great recipe for warm pear and blue cheese salad, you slice the pear and fry it in butter - don;t need sugar. it's yum. but make sure you have good juicy pears

That is the problem the pears I have bought are like bricks.

miggy, was there really enough for two? It looked like hardly anything in the pack.

Will report back tomorrow after eating and let you know how it turned out.

if they're hard it might work to poach them - but for a long time, and, then if you want the sweetness and buttery-ness (which really makes it) fry them quicky as well. have to say though I once served guests with poached pears that were way too hard - hadn't started with soft ones and then hadn't poached them for long enough, and they were quite crap really!

Yum, yum, yum, that was delicious!

Peeled and cored two pears and put them in a pan of water with some sugar, brought to the boil and simmered until they were more like pears rather than bricks. Chopped up two Cos lettuces, added a handful of dried cranberries, decent amount of roughly chopped walnuts, chopped up a lump of stilton, mixed them up. Mix through some of the balsamic and blueberry dressing (which was scrummy). Melted some butter in a frying pan and added some brown sugar, sliced up the pears and caramelised them.

Was delish. If the pears had been more ripe could have got away with using less sugar but otherwise it was really nice and for less than the price M&S wanted for a tiny portion I had a main meal (added some ciabatta) and DH had a generous side portion.

you can;t beat pear and blue cheese imo . another really nice one is to bake slices of french stick with a bit of olive oil til they're golden, then top with slices of pear plus stilton and stick under the grill for a minute.

Ooooh, that sounds yummy, might be just the thing to use up the leftover stilton later in the week.