Vegan Versions: Lemony Pear Dressing with Herbs de Provence

Now that it’s early  March, all the pear sauce I made last Fall has been eaten. The fresh pears from my tree are long gone. All that’s left are the pieces of dried bosc pear you see in the photo. They may be last, but they certainly aren’t least. As we yearn for true Spring around here, when the spicy aroma of new pear blossoms will grace the yard (and any laundry I might be lucky enough to hang out on the line), I can still savor these sweet bits of last year’s harvest in a zesty salad dressing.

Since there’s a good chance we’ll get pelted by homeopathic-sized pills of snow when Romeo and I are out for our morning walk, it’s really nice to enjoy a dressing on my lunchtime salad that transports me to a Summer place where the sun isn’t dipping behind clouds in a way that brings on the shivers, where smooth paving stones are luxuriously warm to the touch, and the smell of lavender replaces those tiny white pills of hard snow.

This version is based on Susan’s wonderful Fat Free Balsamic-Raisin Dressing. It was born when, delighted with her post last Spring, I discovered I had no golden raisins on hand. But I had a small supply of dried pear pieces left. I wanted something that would make those dried pears sing, so I played around a bit with Susan’s basic recipe, and here’s what I came up with:

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Maria (moonwatcher)