I have made this several times and it's always delicious. I sprinkle blueberries or huckleberries on top of the pears before adding the top crust and it makes it extra special. (frozen berries are fine--just rinse them and drain or pat dry). We were blessed with a bumper crop of hard native canning pears, and they have to be peeled, sliced, and boiled before making the pie or they are too hard. I prepared and froze several bags in just the right amount to make pies and find that even people who say they don't care for pears love this pie.

Reviewed On: Mar. 3, 2009

This was what I cooked for my husband for Valentine's Day and it was surprisingly easy. He really liked it. I didn't have dry red wine, so I used a sweet red wine and it was delicious. I went "slighly" under 1/2 cup on the balsamic vinegar and filled it up to 1 cup on the red wine. I cooked the sauce a bit more after removing the steaks, the poured the sauce over the steaks. 4 minutes wasn't quite enough for us for each side so I cooked them about 5 minutes each side. He said it was restaurant quality. It would have been great to have focacio bread to dip in the wine sauce.

Reviewed On: Feb. 16, 2009

This is the closest to my Mom's old fashioned candied yams that I have found. I doubled the amount of sweet potatoes, halved first crosswise, then cut in quarters. I added a cup of sugar because of the extra sweet potatoes, but no extra butter. I used my iron Dutch oven and lid. In 40 minutes the potatoes were tender, held their shape as desired, (not mushy). However the syrup was too thin, so I spooned the potatoes into a casserole dish, and cooked the syrup a little longer until thicker, then spooned it over the potatoes. Next time I'll omit the water altogether. If you want old fashioned real candied yams and not a sweet potato casserole, try this recipe, but omit the water.

Reviewed On: Nov. 25, 2008