My Christmas Eve trip #3 to Central Market

Tomorrow is Christmas at my house--an early Christmas for the Helotes bunch and me.  It it's as warm and beautiful as it was today, we will eat lunch on the porch.  I've already hopefully covered the table with a rose table cloth.

The first trip this morning was to get the pecan pie for Nathan and ingredients for poppy seed chicken, one of his favorites.

The second trip was to get the things I forgot--as was the third, because my menu changed a bit and I decided to make a pea salad.

On the final trip, they were giving samples of everything from apple cider to sausage to salads.  I love Central Market, I do.  It makes me feel festive to just walk in the door.  The smells, the music, the samples, the people.

Here's Maple Roasted Sweet Potato and Pear Salad Boats--which I had to run all around the store to find ingredients for:

2 sweet potatoes, easy peasy
2-4 pears, cored and diced--also easy, as she told me she uses Bosc pears
1 finely chopped shallot
Vinegar--sherry, white condiment, rose champagne, etc.  (This took a while, but I settled on white with herbs)
Extra virgin olive oil.  (Another customer and I agreed that the one in the white bottle was amazing, so I spent--for the first time ever--$18 on a bottle of it and it's going to be my daily ingredient on everything.)

TREES KNEES SPICY MAPLE SYRUP: Whoever heard of spicy syrup--but it is absolutely delicious.

salt and pepper
For serving: Fresh Belgian Endive. (again, first time purchase) individual leaves washed and dried
and about 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts.

Optional: Plain Ellenos Greek Yogurt (which I didn't get)

Toss the potatoes with olive oil, shallot, salt and pepper.  Spread out on parchment paper in a pan.  Drizzle with syrup and roast until tender.

Toss the pear with vinegar and season and set aside.

When the potatoes are done, allow them to cool a bit before tossing with the pears.  Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.

To serve: spoon salad into individual endive leaves and arrange on a serving platter.  If using yogurt, put some of that on top of each boat and garnish with walnuts.