Poached Pear Salad

This salad is soooo yummy, I adapted it from a local restaurant.
This will make two individually prepared salads.

1 red bosc pear (pealed)
1 TBS fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup dry red wine or dry white wine
3 TBS honey
1 tsp vanilla
red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
olive oil
4 pieces bacon (cooked and crumbled)
maple sugar covered pecans or candied pecans (chopped)
soft creamy blue cheese
butter lettuce (any lettuce will work though)
salt and pepper

Peal pear and toss in lemon juice. Set aside. Combine water, wine, honey and vanilla in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the honey dissolves. Add pear. Cook for 15min, turning pear after 7min. Use a slotted spoon to transfer pear to a freezer safe bowl. Boil poaching liquid for 3-5min until thick. Stir frequently so it doesn't burn. Pour syrup over pear and place in freezer to cool, ~15min. Don't allow it to freeze! Cook bacon. Wash lettuce and arrange a circular bed on salad plate in. Add crumbled bacon, chopped pecans and blue cheese to each salad. Remove pear from freezer and cut in half. Place one half in middle of each salad. Take remaining syrup and put in a salad dressing container. Add oil, vinegar, water and salt and pepper to taste for the vinegrette dressing. Drizzle a small amount of dressing on each salad. Serve.

Mom's Doing Ok

My mom is doing better. She had a tracheostomy and is completely off of the sedation medicine. She can sit up, talk, eat and is working on standing and walking. However, she just contracted Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). It is an antibiotic resistant staph infection, that happens to be in her lungs. It is quite common among long-term hospital patients and is infectious.