Cold, clear days call for warm comforting desserts and cold, it definitely has been around here lately. After my spectacular fall on the black ice last week, I thought it might be best to restrict my movements to the indoors for awhile. Fortunately, while incredibly painful, my fall did not do any long term or serious damage to my knee, and I am relieved to see a future of many ski days still ahead of me. After hobbling around the house for 5 or so days things began to improve some and while still painful, I think I’ve turned the corner. Woo hoo!

So to celebrate that and to share with you a lovely alternative to pumpkin everything, I thought I’d make a crumble. A delicious combo of D’Anjou pears and a splash of amaretto liqueur form the base, while a browned butter, hazelnut crumble top it all off. I added a ginormous scoop of ice cream and some salted caramel sauce just to up the ridiculous, over the top ante.

I’m calling this crumble the “Good For What Ails You, Healing Knee Remedy”. It’s also a perfect alternative to a pie for Thanksgiving. Believe it or not, not everyone is a fan of pie (shocking, I know!) nor pumpkin and as such it’s great to have something different up your sleeve. The beauty of it too, is that it’s much simpler than pie and can be assembled the day before.

So bum knee or no, make it, you’ll love it!

For the crumble:

1 1/2 C. old fashioned oats

1 C. flour

1/2 C. chopped Hazelnuts

2/3 C. browned butter

2/3 C. brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

In a small sauce pan, melt and cook the butter over medium low heat until the milk solids turn a dark toasty brown. About 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl combine all the ingredients and pour the butter over the top. Stir and set aside.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

For the Filling:

6-7 medium sized pears, peeled and cored

1/2 C. sugar

2 T. flour

1/4 C. Amaretto Liqueur

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Toss the pears with the sugar, flour and Amaretto in a large bowl and pour directly into a large cast iron skillet or 9×13″ pan. Crumble the topping over the filling and place pan on a baking sheet. Bake 35-40 minutes until bubbling and the topping has browned.

Cool for 15 minutes, then serve with ice cream and salted caramel sauce.

Serves 6-8