Spotted at the QLD Multicultural Festival....

Baked Spinach and Cheese Balls

I spotted a photocopy of this recipe at work on Friday and had to try it straight away!
I can confirm it is very yummy and great comfort food. I jazzed up the tomato mixture with my own herbs and seasoning as opposed to using flavoured canned tomatoes, and added some extra mushrooms and spinach but otherwise stuck to the recipe, which you can find here.

Movie - Norwegian Wood

We saw this stunningly beautiful, tender, sad film today. Lead actress Rinko Kikuchi is amazing. Now I want to read the book by Haruki Murakami.

5 more books...

It's been a while since I posted books that I've been reading lately....I have passed a few on (including "Room" - Emma Donoghue and "Never Let Me Go" - Kazua Ishiguro which I both enjoyed) but these are 5 I still have. I liked all of these but if I had to pick a fave it would be "Once in a House on Fire" by Andrea Ashworth, a memoir about growing up in a poor and violent home in Manchester in the 1970's and 80's. 

Some goodie foodie plugs

While we loved the scenery on the Isle of Skye, let's just say that we were very happy to self cater in our little cottage. We had planned to self cater in Ambleside as well...but those plans were soon pushed to one side when we discovered the range of eating out options at our doorstep!

We enjoyed good food and ambience at:

Queen's Head Hotel, Troutbeck

Fellinis "Vegeterranean" Restaurant, Ambleside

Queen's Head Inn, Hawkeshead

The Glass House Restaurant, Ambleside

Fairfield

Fairfield is a rounded grassy peak above Ambleside and Grasmere - we did a long circuit from Ambleside and followed a ridiculously long stone wall along an exposed ridge all the way back. Loved it of course.

Langdale Pikes

We loved this popular walk up to the Langdale Pikes. It was very weird for us to be walking in a National Park with dogs and sheep everywhere, but I guess every man and his dog has been roaming these hills for many hundreds of years...and the dogs are such a delight to watch - they have so much joy plastered over their little faces.

Lake District: Easedale Tarn and Blea Rigg

The next leg of our UK holiday was the Lake District. Once we got our heads around the overwhelming number of walk options, we decided to keep it local (we were staying in Ambleside) and do a little walk to Easedale Tarn from Grasmere. This, however, was soon extended to a circuit over Blea Rigg, as we couldn't resist the urge to climb up the hills surrounding Easedale Tarn. The views over Great Langdale were gorgeous.