I made this festive little salad for Christmas dinner. Arrange lettuce in your individual salad bowls (I used Boston lettuce). Quarter a pear and core it. Then take each quarter and slice it, but leave it attached up at the top of the section. Place a quarter on each salad plate and fan it out. Sprinkle some dried cherries or dried cranberries over it. Drop dabs of goat cheese around the salad.

For the dressing, I mixed up a simple vinaigrette. I make my salad dressing in a jelly jar. I add oil (here I used about 1/2 cup) then I add balsamic vinegar to total about 1/5 of the oil amount. In this dressing I also added a dash of orange juice. Add 1/2 tsp of sugar, salt and pepper, some dried Italian herbs, one small minced clove of garlic and 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard. Shake it up and dress the salad.