Samantha Elley

Evans Head, New South Wales, AUSTRALIA


Joined October 8th 2008

Number of Posts:
117

Number of Comments:
114

Karma:
10



I love food and I love writing, so somewhere the two must mix. One nourishes the body and the other, dare I say, nourishes the soul!

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Recent Posts

Potato Salad Roll

November 16th 2009 10:42
Potato Salad Roll
Potato Salad Roll
It's a sign of the times when I put an eighties recipe on my vintage food blog. There is now nearly a 30 year gap since flouro t-shirts, WHAM and some pretty rad food was popular. I found this one in my grandmother's 'Eating in the 80s' cookbook and I gotta say I picked the perfect day for it. With temperatures around the mid-30s it was easy to pre-prepare and I didn't have to slave over a hot stove, just serve it up.

Ingredients
4 cups cooked mashed potatoes (without liquid)
1 cup finely sliced celery
1/2 C finely chopped pickled cucumbers
2 level tspns grated onion
2 tblspns mayonnaise
1 tspn lemon juice
1 level tspn salt
1/2 level tspn pepper
1/4 C chopped parsley or chives
4 hard cooked eggs

Method
1. Combine first 8 ingredients
2. Sprinkle chopped parsley or chives over large sheet of greased greaseproof paper.
3. Spread potato mixture over paper into a 40cm x 25 cm rectangle.
4. Place hard-cooked eggs along shorter side of potato. Using paper as a lever, roll potato around eggs like a Swiss roll, keeping paper to outside.
5. Chill well, cut into thick slices. Serve with salad or cold meats.

Serves 6.

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Get Gourmet Food Fast

November 9th 2009 02:05
fast food
Whop Perguignon (Fancy Whopper & Steakhouse Burger)
I love doing research about food on the internet. The ideas that people come up with in relation to food is really quite phenomenal and creative.

Here's one of the more interesting food websites I've found

www.fancyfastfood.com

With a tag that says 'Yeah,it's still bad for you - but see how good it can look' this website takes your typical fast food meal and changes it to look like something that stepped out of a f michelin star restaurant. Below is a recipe from the website

Whop Perguignon (Fancy Whopper & Steakhouse Burger) by Erik of Fancy Fast Food

Ingredients:

1 BK Combo Meal: Whopper with added bacon and mushrooms (have it your way), onion rings, and a bottle of “XXX” Vitaminwater
1 BK Combo Meal: Mushroom Swiss Steakhouse Burger , french fries, and a bottle of “XXX” Vitaminwater
1 Garden Salad
1 bottle of water
packets of salt, pepper, and ketchup
organic parsley (for garnish and a touch of irony)

This recipe is a “slight variation” of Julia Child’s classic Boeuf Bourguignon recipe. First, disassemble the burgers to extract the ingredients we’ll need: bacon, onions, mushrooms, the burger patties, and the buns. Using a paper towel, dry off any oil, ketchup, or mayonnaise from the buns, and then toast them in a toaster (or toaster oven or conventional oven) until they become hard and crusty. Once cool to the touch, grate the bread down into breadcrumbs. (This will be used later on.)

Next, cut the beef patties into uneven square shapes, and then slice the bacon into “lardoons” about a quarter-inch-wide and an inch-and-a-half long. Sauté these small strips of bacon in a saucepan for a bit, and then add in the beef. Sauté the meats together until they start to sizzle, and then pour in about two-thirds of a bottle of the burgundy-colored Vitaminwater. Once the beef has been moistened, take each piece with a pair of kitchen tongs and bread it in the breadcrumbs you made earlier. (This will help thicken the sauce, and make the burger squares look more natural.) Add in the baby carrots from the Garden Salad, a packet of ketchup, salt and pepper to taste, and stir. Then cover the saucepan and let it all stew for at least twenty minutes under a low heat.

Meanwhile, use a paring knife to peel the breading off the onion rings. Add the oniony pieces to the mix of the other onion forms and the mushrooms, and rinse them all in a colander. Then sauté these mushrooms and onions in a small skillet. Finally, put the french fries in a food processor with 1/3 cup of water, and blend until it becomes a mashed potato-like substance.

And now the assembly: place morsels of your beef stew on a fancy white plate. Top it with the sautéed onions and mushrooms, and garnish with chopped organic parsley. Put some mashed potatoes on the side, and then pour some gravy from the saucepan over the meat and potatoes. Serve Vitaminwater in a wine glass. And voila! A Julia Child-inspired beef stew fit for a King!

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It's Finished

October 24th 2009 03:59
house
The (almost) finished product. Front door still needs to be painted
Following are photos of the day before we moved in. There are still small amounts that need to be done but the most important thing is that council have passed us to be able to move in. And not a moment too soon, as the basement we've been living in is attached to a house that had recently been sold and about to exchange hands.
entrance
The entrance with stairs leading up and rumpus room in the background.

Never let it be said that building a house is a boring affair.
rumpus
The downstairs rumpus/living area leading to spare room and laundry/bathroom

Living
The upstairs living area with our new carpet

kitchen
Our beautiful kitchen

deck
The back deck that overlooks the cane
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Flushed with Excitement!

October 14th 2009 05:02
watertank
The watertank under the deck
It's becoming more like a real house now. The water tank has been installed, so has the hot water tank and the toilets.

What more can a person want in life


[ Click here to read more ]
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Going up in the world.

October 12th 2009 02:38
house
Going to see the upstairs and our new driveway.
Our first few forays into checking out the upstairs of the house meant we had to climb a ladder inside.

There was no way we were going to allow our boys to get up there until we had some decent stairs. Their first trip to checking out the main living areas when the back steps were put in, was wonderful


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The home of the laundry shute

October 10th 2009 02:20
cabinets
Our bathroom cabinets
There were two requirements that I had when we designed our new home. Aside from the obvious (bathroom, laundry, 4 bedrooms etc. etc.) the extras that became necessities were a walkin wardrobe and a laundry shute.

The wardrobe, because I could and the laundry shute because the idea of being able to dump dirty clothes into a hole and have it go straight downstairs to the laundry really appealed to me


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Miles of Tiles

October 8th 2009 10:57
kitchen
New tiles in the kitchen area
The following photos show the newly laid tiles in the kitchen and bathroom upstairs.
bathroom
Tiles leading to the internal stairs

The tiles need a bit of cleaning but they still look great because they are where they are meant to be...on our floors


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Crossing the Food Divide

October 7th 2009 03:52
julia
Meryl Streep as Julia Child
The recent release of the movie 'Julie & Julia' is proof that food can be a connecting device through the ages regardless of time and location.

Meryl Streep plays the part of Julia Child, an American woman who finds herself in Paris due to her husband's work commitments. Trying to find a purpose she attends an all male French cooking class and thus begins a legend


[ Click here to read more ]
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oven
Our new oven is an Omega
For the myriad of regular readers that I have (thanks mum for being there), I just wanted to give an update of our cullinary situation.

While the shop is going great guns, although we now realise to get any bigger we will have to move our premises OR open another shop. The kitchen is just tiny where we are


[ Click here to read more ]
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We have a kitchen!

September 21st 2009 06:26
kitchen
The dark angle of our kitchen
It's finally in. Our lovely, lovely kitchen and it looks exactly how I planned it.

The only extra we put in was profile doors. I love them and despite friends telling me they take up more time cleaning, I couldn't help myself


[ Click here to read more ]
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Recent Comments

Comment by Samantha Elley
on Get Gourmet Food Fast

November 12th 2009 04:37
Isn't it bizarre. That's why I had to write about it and share a recipe.
Thanks for reading.

Comment by Samantha Elley
on Crossing the Food Divide

October 7th 2009 22:13
Hi Helen,
No problem. I LOVE the cooking movies and Meryl Streep is always a winner in my books.
Sam

Comment by Samantha Elley
on A Kitchen (and that means house) Update!

October 5th 2009 22:39
Hi Wilson,
We got it for around $1800 which is a discount price so I think it's usually over $2000.
Can't wait to use it.
Sam

Comment by Samantha Elley
on We have a kitchen!

September 22nd 2009 22:55
LOL Lara,

Yes, the APPLIANCES have been ordered. It will be lovely to have a kitchen again. At the moment we are coping with a barbeque, microwave, toaster, kettle and sandwich press.

Sam

Comment by Samantha Elley
on Now for the cladding!

August 23rd 2009 07:03
Hey Spike,
Will keep the orange and purple ideas in my mind....but thats where they'll stay...LOL!!

What else do you call cladding? Alooominum siding?

Sam

Comment by Samantha Elley
on The archbishop's take on social media

August 10th 2009 02:05
Hi Chris,

yes fair call on social advancement. And laughed at the teenagers of the future not being able to construct an email properly.

I totally agree with community groups and common interests. My comment there came about in response to Morgan's previous one. But I do think that face-to-face community, be it a church, sporting or interest group, can't be beaten.

True, I've made good friends on my internet groups, but I feel that I miss a whole dimension of those people by not knowing them in real life. And if time is spent getting to know them and not so much the people you can have a face to face chat with, I wonder if it's a good thing.

Having said all that, I do enjoy getting to know people on the internet...LOL...so go figure.

Take care,
Sam

Comment by Samantha Elley
on The archbishop's take on social media

August 8th 2009 10:12
Hi Guys,

Have any of you spoken with a teenager recently? I tend to agree with the good Archbishop. Whether it be face to face or over the phone, there is a whole generation of young people who don't seem to be able to cope with communication that doesn't involve a keyboard, mobile phone or webcam!

And I've also gotta add that belonging to a church is a very real way of being part of community. It's often the local churches who organise social events (ours holds marriage courses, carols by candlelight, mothers groups, youth groups and craft days for the elderly). Churches are often the ones reaching out to the excluded, the lonely and those who just need face to face contact with others. Perhaps not to the satisfaction of all minority groups, but I get the feeling most of those minority groups wouldn't want to be part of a church anyway.

Just my thoughts,
take care,
Sam


Comment by Samantha Elley
on Gnocchi alla Bava

July 22nd 2009 02:08
Hi Lara,
Thanks, it's not exactly a quick meal I agree. However, I am learning to love the process (glass of red wine helps..LOL).

Sam

Comment by Samantha Elley
on Is homosexuality a choice?

July 19th 2009 05:51
Hi Mountain Fog,

I shall make this my last post on this blog as I think it's gone off topic from what Jeff wrote, but would be happy to discuss more the validity of the Bible in the realms of law and history with you or anyone interested.

It actually does get used as a textbook in some university ancient history courses (so I've been told by students of said courses). So it has quite a bit of historical fact within it's pages.

The Bible isn't a science book, well at least not as we understand science today, so proving the invalidity of creation in it isn't an issue for Christians.

It is the most unique of books for it's history, the number of authors and the many different styles of writing in it. Definitely worth a post all it's own whether you agree on it's validity as God's word or not.

Take care,
Sam

Comment by Samantha Elley
on Is homosexuality a choice?

July 17th 2009 05:11
Doug,

You wrote:
"you have no right whatsoever to advocate for the imposition of your faiths laws on anyone of another faith or none."

Except maybe the 'thou shalt not murder' and 'thou shalt not steal' ones...

But that's why discussions happen because there will always be people who see the bible as very relevant in their personal lives as well as the political realm.

While Australia (and the US) are multi-faith because there are many different religions represented, it is by and large still majority Christian.

I totally agree with you that no-one should force you to believe something you don't, and I certainly would never be so presumptious ,anymore than I should be expected to believe or follow something that grates against my beliefs.

That's the beauty of democracy. Is that we can have these discussions and debates. My gripe is when such discussions crumble into a name-calling, disrespecting schoolyard 'punch-up'.

So far so good....LOL

Take care,
Sam