Creamy Avocado Pasta

Use a really ripe, squishy avocado for a creamy sauce.

Ingredients (serves 2)
10 or 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tbsp olive oil
150g tagliatelle or spaghetti
1 ripe avocado
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
Handful of pine nuts, toasted
Parmesan to serve

* Preheat oven to 150C
* Put the tomatoes on a baking tray, drizzle with 1 tbsp oil and bake for 30 minutes
* Just before the tomatoes are done, begin cooking the pasta as per packet instructions
* While the pasta cooks, put 1 tbsp olive oil, avocado flesh, chopped garlic, salt and lemon juice in a bowl and mash with a fork until smooth and well combined. Alternatively whizz it up in a food processor.
* Drain the pasta and combine with the sauce.
* Top with the roasted tomatoes, pine nuts and parmesan.

For a meaty addition, a couple of slices of smoked grilled bacon cut into strips works very well.

Egg in an Avocado

I'd seen this idea a few times on various websites, so thought I should give it a go since eggs and avocados are amongst my favourite things.

Ingredients
1/2 Avocado
1 small egg
salt/pepper

1. Pre-heat oven to 200C
2. Remove stone from avocado and scoop out a little extra flesh to make space for the egg. I didn't make more space and had some major egg white overflow issues!
3. Put avocado into a baking dish. I made it a little 'nest' out of foil to help keep it level.
4. Carefully crack egg into the hole and season.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on how 'set' you want the egg to be.

As you can see from the piccy, I ate mine with a couple of grilled potato cakes. Really tasty and filled me up for ages.