Tagliatelle with Leeks and Prosciutto, topped with Pangrattato

This is one of my family's favourite pasta dishes. It's actually adapted from Jamie Oliver's recipe.

The pasta is enhanced by a topping of pangrattato, etymology of which is from pane (bread) and grattato (grated). I read somewhere that this was the poor Italian man's substitute for parmesan cheese, which was a more expensive commodity. Pangrattato is made from dried mushroom, breadcrumbs, rosemary and garlic.  In Jamie's recipe, he uses dried porcini mushrooms, but since that is very expensive here in Singapore, I just use dried shitake mushrooms and it's fine.

The dish doesn't use as much pasta as other pasta dishes because half of it is made of leeks.

Homemade Pizza Dough

Ever since I learned how to make my own pizza dough last year, we hardly order pizza at a restaurant anymore. This dough is very easy to make, plus it's natural, healthier and convenient to use. It can be stored in the freezer for 3 months. Just take it out to thaw, knead again, and cut off a piece, to roll and make a fresh, new pizza.

It doesn't matter if your pizza is not perfectly round as you roll it out. Let it have a rustic look. The kids just like to make strange shapes with the dough, so it's fun!

But if you sometimes have pangs of OCD like me, just turn over a plate on top of the rolled out pizza dough, and trim off the excess.

Homemade pizza crust with salami, mozzarella, chili flakes and fresh arugula.

Baked Egg, Nested in Avocado

This is a healthy, highly nutritious breakfast that's very easy to make. It requires pretty much less than five ingredients: the avocado, the egg, and whatever spices/sauces you want to flavour it with. For this one, I used salt, pepper, pesto and Sriracha sauce.

Here's a link to some of the healthy benefits of the avocado. Read here.

I made this for Easter Sunday breakfast at home, a few weeks ago. I served the avocado with some Green Tea & Chocolate Waffles with berries. It was a very interesting contrast in taste and texture: the crispy edges of the waffle with the creaminess of the avocado; the subtle sweetness of the chocolate in the waffle, with the tartness of the berries and spicy, savoury flavour of the toppings on the avocado. If you'd like to see the recipe for the waffles, click here.