Late autumn - pears

Autumn is a great time for fruit! Pears, apples, quinces and pomegranates. More about them later - for now I'm looking at pears.

Josephine pears care of my neighbour, Kevin.

There are many things that can be done with fresh pears - best of all, just eat them! But cooking fresh pears is a lovely thing to do - pear and ginger jam (love it!) or a crumble are among my favourites.

Pear and alpine strawberry crumble

To make the crumble I peel and core the pears then cut into eight pieces. These are then rinsed and simmered with star anise for maybe about 15 minutes.

The crumble is made with oatmeal, brown sugar and almond meal/almond pieces bound together with melted butter.

I throw in some other fruit dependiug on what's available - this season there are still alpine strawberries so ... yum!

I cook the crumble for around 30 minutes in a moderate oven - easy! So easy that you don't need exact quantities for anything.

Enjoy with sour cream, icecream, cream or all three.