Recipe: Jools' Pregnant Pasta, Endive Salad, and Frangipani Tarts (Jamie Oliver's Meals in Minutes, p. 30)

I can't help it, I'm a total pasta addict. I try to have it only once every couple of weeks, but really, I could eat it every day. Sigh. Anyways, this one is a doozy. The sauce is made up of sausage meat whizzed together with celery and carrots, and then cooked in fresh, diced tomatoes, and it's lovely. The recipe called for fennel, which I didn't have - and fresh fennel is super-expensive right now - but I did have some beautiful Herbes de Provence from the Edible Garden, and they contained fennel, so I used that instead and it still tasted great.

Instead of the endive salad I used up some mixed baby greens I had in my fridge, with some fresh herbs, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and lemon.

The tarts were really easy to make, with the exception of the almond meal - you know, the frangipane in Frangipani Tarts. I had to make my own, which I did by whizzing up whole almonds in the food processor. Normally you would use almonds without their skins, which I didn't have - I had a Costco sized bag of raw almonds, so I guess my tarts turned out a little "rustic" in terms of texture, but still tasty lil' treats!

Time: 55 minutes, from thought to table. Extra time needed to make almond meal and figure out the fennel solution.