Spiced Pear and Cranberry Crostata

A crostata is one of my favourite desserts. It's basically like a pie, but it's free form so you don't even need a pie pan to make one. They are so easy to make (especially when you cheat and use refrigerated pie crust like I do) and I love the crust to filling ratio. With a pie, I feel like there is too much filling for that little amount of pie. A crostata is thinner so there is a perfect amount of crust for the filling. I had bought some cranberries for a loaf of orange cranberry pound cake and didn't want the rest of the cranberries to go to waste. So I bought a couple of pears and threw this together. It was so easy and so delicious. The pears were just as sweet as the cranberries were tart and the spices warmed everything up and made the crostata sing!

Ingredients:
2 pears, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 c cranberries
1/4 c sugar (taste a piece of your pear and if it is really sweet, just use about 2 T of sugar)
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 refrigerated pie crust
1-2 T milk and sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 375. In a bowl combine all ingredients from the pears to the cloves, including the cloves. Mix together well and set aside while you roll out the crust. On a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, gently unroll the pie crust and put in the center of the pan. Carefully spoon the pear mixture into the middle of the pie crust, try to drain most of the liquid off before putting on the crust. Spread the mixture out leaving about 1-2 inches of pie crust around the outside. Or if you are like me and really love pie crust, leave about 4 inches of pie crust around the outside. Then gently fold the crust over the fruit. To help the crust brown and look pretty you can lightly brush the folded crust with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375 for an hour or until the crust is golden brown.