Summer!

Oxford has been beautiful this week - well towards the end of it anyway. The sun is out, and everything is lovely. Apart from the big project due in tomorrow. Never mind, then it will be over.

I made a lovely salad for lunch this week to celebrate the warm weather


It has romaine lettuce, big tomatoes, cucumber, pickled beetroot, avocado and crutons that I made out of my favourite walnut bread. It's dressed with my homemade dressing:

1 tbsp mustard - grainy or french
1 tbsp sugar - caster
1-2 cloves garlic
Salt & Pepper
1 part vinegar to 2 parts oil: I usually use white wine and balsamic vinegars and olive and walnut oil, but a bit of sesame oil is nice, as is red wine vinegar.

Blend with a stick blender.

To take to my pot luck dinner this week, I made a cheesecake, as it was the Jewish Festival of Shavuot. Shavuot celebrates the Jews recieving the Old Testament from God, and it is traditional to eat dairy at this festival, as until we had the Old Testament, we didn't know the rules about eating meat. So cheesecake has become traditional.