don't forget to share your vegetarian dishes with me as part of vegetables, beautiful vegetables! the deadline for posting them on your blog is 25 may.

london has been full of sunshine and warmth over the past week and this weekend i was in the mood to celebrate with a cake. i fancied something citrussy to use up the orange that has been sitting forlornly in the fruit bowl for a little longer than it should.

a quick rummage through various cookbooks led me to a nigel slater recipe for a pistachio cake which is scented with orange and rosewater and then topped with a lemon icing – absolutely perfect!

i decided to up the rosewater content and added it to the icing as well which worked incredibly well – the icing has a strong lemon flavour which is softened by the floral rosewater. a sprinkling of pretty-in-pink sugar crystals and i had a lovely moist cake which i’m sharing with tartlette helen, and domestic goddess jennifer, for this month’s sugar high friday which has a citrus theme.

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it’s not been a very healthy week for me – i’ve had several bugs, one after the other, and am still feeling a bit worn out and run down.

food has been quite low on my list of priorities however this pasta dish really did hit the spot! it’s very simple – a flavoursome tomato sauce with lots garlic, basil and a hint of chilli into which a handful of mozzarella cubes are added just before serving. the cheese slowly melts into the sauce and before you know it you’re twirling mozzarella strands round your fork as well as linguine.

the melting cheese was wonderfully comforting and the fresh tomato flavours made me feel like i was eating my way back to health. and as it was so delicious, i’d like to share this with ruth at once upon a feast for this week’s round of presto pasta nights.

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19-25 may is national vegetarian week here in the uk. as with last year, this is, i think, a perfect excuse to encourage food bloggers to share their favourite vegetarian recipes.

“vegetables, beautiful vegetables” is an annual event where food bloggers around the world are invited to show off their skills at creating fantastic vegetarian dishes.

to participate:

• tell us about a vegetarian dish that you have cooked, complete with recipe. or maybe review a favourite vegetarian restaurant. or take a photo of your weekly vegetable purchases and tell us what you plan to do with them.
• post about this on your blog by 25 may.
• link to this post and send me details (see below)

i’ll then do a summary of all the great ideas out there. please get involved! and hopefully you won’t find it too difficult given most of us eat at least one vegetarian meal each week.

getting involved:

once you’ve posted about something vegetarian send an email with “vegetables, beautiful vegetables” in the subject line to: abby (at) eattherightstuff (dot) com by midnight, 25 may with the following information:

• your name
• your location
• the name of your blog and its url
• a link to your post
• a copy of your main photo (if you use one)

cheesecake confuses me. it’s one of those foods that large numbers of people get incredibly excited about and i’ve no idea why, finding it overly rich and sweet, often bland and never something that lives up to the hype.

i was quite intrigued therefore, to see that this month’s daring bakers challenge, chosen by elle from feeding my enthusiasms and deborah from taste and tell, would require me to bake a cheesecake for the first time.

obviously, because this is a daring bakers challenge, getting us to make a baked cheesecake was not sufficient – instead we were tasked to make cheesecake pops, using a recipe from sticky, chewy, messy, gooey by jill o’connor.

so, how did i get on?

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