Food in August

August has been a bit of a mixed month, in weather and in recipes. I've been baking less and eating out more, never a bad thing. But now seasons are changing, I'm excited for cooler days and to get my slow cooker out once again. I've been flicking through crisp new cookbooks and pinning away on Pinterest for inspiration.

So without further a do, here are some of my favourite things from the last few weeks.

As August is my birthday month, I always look forward to getting some new cookbooks. I did get a few and have excitedly flicked my way through each and bookmarked recipes I'd like to try. As always, I'm always looking to add more to my collection. What do you recommend?

I'm absolutely in love with Gizzi's newest book, its so well presented. Some of the meals may take extra time to make so will be saving that for days off and weekends. I also won Anna Mae's book on a Twitter competition, there's some great cheesy recipes but also sweets and pickles.

I never used to be too fond of Gin. I'd have cocktails with Gin in, but never a Gin and tonic. I don't know what happened but somewhere along the way I have now become almost too fond of it!

My favourite gin so far (other than Tanqueray, darling) is Half Hitch. Made in Camden Lock using a combination of traditional copper pots and modern day vacuum distillation, the guys at HH add black tea and bergamot to their gin, made in small batches for optimum results.

Here, I made my own version of a French 75 cocktail, a pink one! For these I eyeballed my measures, but something around 40ml gin, 15ml fresh lemon juice a dash of pomegranate syrup and topped up with your choice of fizz. I had some Lanson floating around and decided to use that, cava would work equally well.

New to the Fitzrovia area, Percy & Founders offer a great all-day menu. Tucked away round the corner from Goodge Street, there's space for 200 covers with a few different dining and lounge areas to tuck yourself into. I popped over there to check out their burger, naturally, and couldn't leave before trying their peanut butter parfait also.

I shall definitely be returning for more PB parfaits! I also really enjoyed their burger. Its one of those places you can take 'grown ups' and still have a burger yourself. I.e. parent friendly restaurants.

And that, my friends, pretty much sums up August. Short and sweet. September is already looking jam packed and I'm excited to get cracking on those recipes!

I'll also be loading up a brand new blog header from the super lovely Angie B Studio. I'm excited to finally finish the last step of updating my blog and have loved working with Angie, she just knew exactly what I wanted (even if I didn't know before!).

---