Summery Seasonal Foodie Round-up: August

I think this has to be my favourite food season of the entire year!  Full of  sunshine (if we are lucky!), barbecues, picnics, festivals, and pick your own – not to mention birthdays in my house, so of course it means cake too!

Let’s start with some Afternoon Tea Inspiration from Beach Hut Cook, I think every beach picnic should be like this.

Moving on to All You Need is Love and Cake for some Keftede Kebabs. If you are fond of that style of food, then Chez Foti has a Greek Spanakopita (spinach and feta pie) recipe over at hers which would also work well for a picnic!

Eat Like a Girl has four Beef Barbecue Recipes  plenty more besides! and Lover of Creating Flavours has a great Steak Marinated in Beer with Aji Sauce which would be good to chuck on the barbecue too.

You can’t go wrong with Hungry Healthy Happy’s Jerk Chicken and Avocado Salad , speaking of which – A Pug in the Kitchen has a gorgeous Summer Vegetable Couscous with Feta and Pine Nuts. Cook Sister’s Masala Roasted Pumpkin Salad with Halloumi and Rocket sounds amazing, and Fish Fingers for Tea has a warm Salmon Salad Recipe with a dill and caper Mayonnaise. I love the sound of Manneskjur’s Trout and Asparagus and Fennel Salad too.

Berries are at their best right now, and there are still plenty of Strawberries to be found, not to mention bountiful cherries, raspberries, and blackberries that are just coming into season. Mummy Mishaps Strawberry and Elderflower Eton Mess Cake looks truly delicious.

This next recipe from Super Golden Bakes might actually mean that the cake itself is naked, but if you want to make this Strawberry and Cream Naked Cake without any clothes on, that’s up to you.

Onto raspberries now with Botanical Baker’s Vanilla Panacotta topped with frozen raspberries, perfect on a warm summer’s evening.

I have some Blackberry cakes with Lemon Mascarpone Icing over at mine, and Wilderness Sparks (a new foal born of the fabulous Science Sparks stables no less) also has this great Blackberry Crumble Cake to tempt you too.

Blueberries are on one of the multi berries hidden in the White Chocolate Cheesecake over at Mari’s World.

Recipe Junkies Cherry & Almond Cake  happens to be both dairy and gluten-free, and if you are looking for something completely different  – how about Barktime’s Chilled Sour Cherry Soup?

Whilst we are still on sweet stuff, Alexander Residence shows us how to make Smores, and I had to include Julie’s Family Kitchen Sweetie Vanilla Cupcakes because they are gorgeous,  and making them may well keep your brood happy on a summer holiday afternoon.

It sounds to me like the UK has been doing pretty well in terms of sunshine and heat recently, no doubt it will start to rain next week when I come home for a few days – sorry about that. So if you are in need of a little cooling down, how about making your own ice cream? MissieLizzie has a delicious sounding Coffee & Speculoos Ice Cream Recipe, Searching for Spice’s Blackcurrant Frozen Yoghurt sounds so refreshing, as does Annie’s Noms No Churn Peach and Raspberry Ice Cream. What Kate Baked shows us how to make  Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, and here with a couple of lolly recipes are Fuss Free Flavours Cucumber, Mint and Elderflower Ice Pops and Casa Costello with Peach Melba Smoothie Lollies. Last but not Least The Good Life Mum with a Granita with Grapefruit, and one of my favourite things – Champagne!

A couple of Summer cocktails because it would be rude not to –  Stitch and Bear’s Raven Rita, and Lavendar and Lovage’s Raspberry and Elderflower Pimms, and it’s back to the Beach Hut Cook for a large glass of Bitter Orange Sparkle. Cin cin!

Enjoy the sunshine, the lie ins, the long lazy days, and see you in September when everyone will be back to school, or panicking over school uniforms (or both), and the Foodie Round up will be all about anything that takes your fancy! You know what to do with those recipes!