one tasty salad: arugula and pear with stilton blue cheese and lemon shallot vinaigrette

i really like pears, they are possibly my favorite winter fruit-but when they are sitting all pretty and wholesome in the fruit bowl i very often forget to eat them (not as easy as an apple to bite into, i guess) until they become too mushy and ripe. this time i decided to combine the beautiful sweet anjou pears in my fruit bowl with some stilton cheese (they had samples at the market, i tried a piece....flavor explosion-there was no option but to bring some home) to make our dinner salad. it was a big success in a sweet and sour, crunchy, deeeee-licious, and very satisfying sort of a way. this salad is a meal in itself along with a nice bowl of soup or a slice of toasted whole grain bread. one more thing-i'm pretty convinced my lemon shallot vinaigrette drizzled on almost anything yields the same delicious results. it's that good. 

ingredients for the salad:

• arugula (rocket)

• walnuts (can be candied)

• stilton blue cheese (crumbled)

• anjou pears (thinly sliced)

• lemon-shallot vinaigrette

lemon shallot vinaigrette:

• 1/2 small shallot, very finely minced

• juice of 1 lemon

• 1/4 to 1/2 cup good extra virgin olive oil

• 2-3 tsp dijon mustard

• sea salt

• freshly ground pepper

• a few thyme leaves

whisk it all together until thickened, allow the dressing to sit for at least 1/2 an hour before using.