Wonky Summer Pasta, Herby Salad, Pear Drop Tartlets

Wonky Summer Pasta, Herby Salad and Pear Drop Tartlets p. 46 and serves 4.
This pasta was light and refreshing. Had a strong lemon flavor and all around a big hit. My husband said it was a little too heavy on the lemon for him. He pointed out that we have been having a LOT of lemon and I pointed out that Jamie hasn't written a meal yet without at least one lemon and usually 1 1/2 or 2. But these last lemons I bought were exceptionally juicy so I promised to lay off the lemon a little in the future :) We have all had better pastas but it was quite refreshing for summer and different enough to be novel.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Herb garden. It is so nice to be able to have all the fresh herbs you want whenever you want at a small cost and without worrying about them going bad. The next thing I want is a lemon and lime tree/bush although I doubt I can do that here.

Here is the whole meal. This salad was the most delicious salad that I have ever made I think. The man of the house ate 2 huge servings of salad and would have had a 3rd had I not reminded him there was still desert to come. It has 8 rashers of pancetta cooked to a crisp with garlic and fennel and crushed over the top. Yummy! This was another first for me. I have never cooked with pancetta because it is expensive and not always easy to find in the states. I was very surprised when I cut open the package to smell something so good. It was raw but it smelled good enough to eat just like that. It was full of flavor. Be sure to get sweet crisp grapes to go in it. Don't use older, soft or mushy ones. The salad greens are rocket and watercress along with fresh mint and tarragon. I wouldn't leave any of those out because the combination is too good to be missed. Don't scrimp on the mint or the tarragon either because they really add a lot.

The kids loved the grapes in the salad and felt privileged to have them since we don't normally buy them here. They cost about 13-15$ a Kg which is about 2.2 lbs. BUT I have discovered a local farmers market on Sat. mornings here and it is so much cheaper than the groceries. I got these CA grapes :) for only $3 NZD a Kg. Not at all bad! I will be shopping there weekly from now on. I bought my eggs there too for almost 1/2 the normal price.

This little ballerina loved the salad but didn't eat too much pasta because we didn't cut it up small enough and after we realized our folly she was done bothering with the food.

He doesn't look to happy here but really he loved the food. Below are the tartlets which tasted amazing but didn't look very good. I was so excited to make these because they looked so pretty in the cookbook, so I was even more disappointed that they turned out so ugly :(

I need some help with them. This was the first time I have made meringue and it just didn't turn out quite right. I need some advice from those of you who have experience here. It wouldn't brown properly and then it ended up a little too brown. Then it didn't peak properly either. I don't think it was stiff enough when I started. Any suggestions on meringue?

All in all the meal was an easy 30 min. Super quick and yummy and it went really smoothly. Would do it all again. The pasta wasn't the best ever but it was still quite good.