Apple/Pear Salad with Feta

I generally view salads as wet lettuce. I mean, I absolutely love them when other people make them, but I really don't like making them myself. Therefore, when I make a salad, it has to be really good to be worth facing all that...wet lettuce. This is indeed a good one, which uses apple-pears... a relatively new hybrid to markets near me. They look like huge golden apples and taste like apples soaked in pear juice. If you don't live in a place that has them, just use a sweet variety of apples instead (Cosmic Crisp, Gala, etc.). Adapted from several recipes. 

Yield: serves 6-7 generously plated or 10 as a buffet salad.

Ingredients:

Dressing:

3 T virgin olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T orange juice
3 T chopped pecans
2 T honey
salt & pepper to taste

Greens:

6 C loosely packed baby mixed organic greens (make sure it includes radicchio)
1 apple-pear in very thin wedges (or use apples--Pink Lady apples are my favorite)
1/3 C dried cranberries
1/3 C feta cheese, crumbled.
1 C whole pecans (optional)

Combine olive oil, vinegar, orange juice, pecans, honey, salt & pepper, to taste, mix until well blended in bowl or shake in bottle. Add greens and toss. divide among 4 plates. top with apple-pear slices and sprinkle with rest of ingredients. Be sure and sprinkle apple-pear slices with some kind of citrus (lemon?) if you plan to serve it later than right away! They will brown...