A Rikki/Nathan versus Jamie Oliver fail - but still tasty

Well Nathan and I decided to have another go at a Jamie 30 minute meal. Actually, we had invited our friend Katie round for dinner and though we would make one as they are so good for entertaining and feeding several (i.e. more than the two of us) people. She however couldn't make it but we were already salivating over the food and decided to go ahead with it anyway. So I thought that if the both of us cooked it together we could totally smash the 30 minute time limit.... Hmmm.... well if when I had bought all the ingredients I had remembered the basil and Nathan hadn't had to go out and buy some before we could continue cooking I believe we would have smashed it indeed! But alas I did forget the basil and in the end it took us a million years (maybe 50mins) to make the meal; I actually think two people is a hinderance to the 30 minute aim (and maybe me and my ingredient forgetting is a hinderance too). But the time and effort was worth it - the meal was delicious! And it was delicious again for lunch today and I am anticipating that the dessert will be delicious for dessert again this evening :) There are some pics below of all the things we made. To avoid blatant plagiarism I have only included the recipe for the pear drop tarts for dessert.

so tasty and so pretty

Ingredients ~

• short crust pastry cases
• raspberry jam
• pears
• 2 egg whites
• 100g caster sugar
• pinch of salt

To bake ~

• Preheat the oven to 190 degrees
• Put the egg white, sugar and salt into an electric mixer and beat until stiff and glossy
• Whilst the electric mixer is running put about 1 tbsp of raspberry jam into each of the pastry cases
• Cut slices of pear and put on top of the jam - you can probably fit an 1/8 of a pear in each tart
• Then top with the meringue mixture
• Put the tarts into the oven and bake for 6-8mins or until the meringue has harden and is starting to brown
• Easy as and delicious!

The wonky pasta - a lovely mix of basil, lemon, egg yolks and parmesan for the sauce.  We rolled and cut our own pasta but Jamie recommends buying fresh lasagne sheets and slices up (thus the wonky)

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The absolutely amazing salad. A beautiful herby combination of mint and tarragon with rocket (I added baby spinach as well) topped with crispy prosciutto and fennel seeds.  Fantastic!!