Pear Tart

I'm pretty sure most of you are here for the food, or maybe for Thor. You probably don't care much about the rocks at Vedauwoo, which will be a topic very soon. But, to try to keep you food folk happy, here's a dessert I made Thursday night, when the temperature inexplicably fell to early April levels.

The original recipe called for fresh pears, cored and sliced. I don't know about your households, but mine devours fresh fruit. So, other than the apples that we pick from our own trees, fresh fruit is never used in cooking. It's OK, this came out great, despite the fact that the only semblance to the original recipe, from Betty Crocker's Shortcut Cooking for the Smart Cook, is the crust. And I even changed that around. *sigh* No wonder I can never duplicate anything!

PEAR TART

Crust:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans

1 to 1-1/2 pounds sliced canned pears, well drained

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, softened

Preheat the oven to 375F. In a bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar and pecans for the crust. Cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Press into the bottom of a tart dish or pie plate. Bake at 375F for about 8 to 12 minutes, until the crust is browned (it will vary depending upon the size of your dish and therefore the thickness of your crust). Remove the crust from the oven, and arrange the drained pears in the crust (or just dump them in, as I did). In your bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle over the pears, and return to the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the top is bubbly and the pears are tender.
Cool before serving with whipped cream. Resist the temptation to cut it while it's warm if you want a pretty dessert - learn from me. There's a reason there's no picture of this tart looking all pretty with wonderful, highly caloric fresh whipped cream on a pretty blue flowered plate: because it fell apart on the way to the plate. But the way my guys wolfed it down, I'm thinking it didn't matter that it wasn't pretty!