Chicken with Pears

I attended my first food blogging conference recently in Chicago with BlogHer Food.  It was amazing to be around so many successful food bloggers.  While attending a session put on by one of the sponsors the first morning, I sat across from Katie Webster and learned that she was from Vermont.  I don’t think I know anyone from Vermont. She was so interesting to talk to and during our chat, I learned that she had just published a cookbook.  I was so excited to hear all about the process.  She actually hired expert food testers to try out the recipes, how cool is that.  After meeting her, I couldn’t wait to find her cookbook, Maple. They were selling it the following day at the conference and I picked one up and found her later in the lobby and asked her to sign it for me. She was so gracious and didn’t care at all that I was a newbie food blogger.

So of course I couldn’t wait to try something from her book. All of the recipes feature maple syrup. While reading through it on the plane home, I decided to try the Maple Ginger Chicken Thigh recipe because it had pears and I am on a bit of a pear kick.  I tried to follow the recipe exactly but I made a few tweaks.  I cut down the ginger, as it’s not my favorite flavor, but otherwise I stuck to her recipe.  This has just a hint of maple flavor, but not so much that it overwhelms the dish.  The pears I used were pretty ripe and sweet so that the end result had a lot of liquid.  I loved the pear/maple combination.  The dish is just slightly sweet but mostly savory.

This would be a great weeknight dinner. It took me just a few minutes to make the marinade the night before and only about five minutes to cut up the pears before I put it in the oven. Simple, easy and full of flavor.  I hope the rest of the recipes turn out as well as this one did.

If you’re looking for some interesting recipes, check out her book and let me know which dish I should try next. She also has a blog, healthyseasonalrecipies.com.