Ellzey.Org

The Ellzeys are proud to introduce the newest member of the family - Apricot!

She’s a 9 week old Jackhuaua aka Chi-Jack - her mother was a Jack Russell Terrier and her daddy a Chihuahua.

Derek’s been asking for a dog since his birthday last year.  Can you tell he’s excited?

After a meal we took her to play outside.  But first a drink:

Apricot loves worrying the flowers in the garden:

She also enjoys romping through all the plants:

After all that excitement she’s all worn out and needs a rest in her bed:

Too, too cute!

My brother Noah and sister-in-law Emily graciously invited us to spend a week with them and their boys in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the last week in July. We had a wonderful time. Here is some of what we did:

We swam. We swam in the pool, we swam in the ocean. The pool was right outside the house where we stayed, very convenient. The kids could spend hours chasing their toypedos in the water, using the snorkle, doing laps, or seeing how long they could stay underwater. We went to the pool every day, sometimes twice a day.

The beach and the ocean were only a few blocks away, also very convenient. Lily was especially fond of swimming in the ocean, she never left voluntarily and always wanted to go deeper so she could body-surf bigger waves. Cousin Jacob would swim with her and by the end of the week Derek had warmed up to it as well. We also played on the sand, the kids especially enjoyed watching the clams dig under the sand at the surf.

This was our first night after arriving. The silly adults thought we would just be walking along the beach or playing in the sand and didn’t make the kids wear suits. Lily and Jacob of course dove in fully clothed:

Derek and Theo stayed out and played on the sand instead.

We ate. We ate at casual dining, we ate at fine dining, we ate some at the house but we didn’t do much by way of “cooking”. Here we all are at a fun hamburger place:

Since Zane took the picture I had to get one there of just him:

Noah and Emily :

Cousins Jacob and Theo:

We also ate at a fine dining establishment. The food was good, the drinks even better:

Lily and Jacob:

Derek and Theo:

Zane and I:

We played mini-golf, in the rain; the storm ended halfway through. Mini-golf is a favorite activity for cousin Jacob:

We celebrated Theo’s 4th birthday and Derek’s 6th birthday with a treasure hunt for stuffed animal presents orchestrated by Lily and Jacob:

This next one is my favorite:

We took them on a trip to Teddy Toyland and had cake afterward:

We also had a chance to take turns going out as couples, had nice walks on the beach, gaming and movie nights at the house. It was a great time for all. Thank you again Noah & Emily

What seems like ages ago, my dear friend Jocelyn “tagged” me on her blog to write a 6 word memoir of myself. The rules go like this:

1. Write a six-word memoir.
2. Post it to your blog, maybe with a pic.
3. Link to the person who tagged you
4. Tag a few folks
5. Leave a comment for them with an invite to play.

I read it the day it was posted but it’s taken me this long to think about it. This is thematic of my summer; since I quit my job in May I’ve been wracked with indecision about what to do with myself once school starts up again in the fall. On the other hand, this indecision hasn’t been all that distracting from what’s been a busy and very fun summer with the kids. There’s always someone who wants my attention, if it’s not the kids it’s the husband, the overly-affectionate cat, my garden, my friends. This leads me to make a decision about one thing, identifying why I’m so happy lately despite not knowing what’s going to happen in the long term:

Everyone wants to be with Mommy

Here’s Mommy during a rare alone moment taking a break from conversing with online friends:

Hey T&A Show! Hey Happycake! Tag - You’re it!

My workplace was shut down the entire week of the Fourth of July. Work is slow so they are saving money. ho hum.

Our backyard was shaped like a bowl. I had told myself for years that I would fix it up with a retaining wall someday. But as things go, I never had the time. Being one to seize the day, I was determined to use my shut down time for something productive, and I resolved to fix the backyard.

This is what it looked like right when I got started. Nice Bobcat huh?

I wound up spending 6 days in the bowl, working, moving dirt, cutting railroad ties (3 bundles of them), and pounding 4′ lengths of rebar into the ground.   The hardest part was pounding the rebar into the ground.  That is rough work!   If you ever decide to do something like this, consider that railroad ties and the rocks embedded in railroad ties really play hell on chainsaws.   I screwed up three cheap chainsaws.

Here is a picture of the work in progress.

All said and done, it came out a little over what I expected to pay but still much cheaper than I could have paid someone else to do the work.    I had a full dump truck of fill dirt to back fill behind the railroad ties.  I think that is 8 yards, either 8 or 12, I cannot remember.

I took a bunch of pictures but the area is so large that it won’t fit in one.  I had to use Photoshop Elements to combine, crop, rotate them.  I am not a Photoshop wizard but I think you get the idea.

:)  I am glad it is done.   I’ll post some line drawings of what I want to do with this now.  I has planz.

We’ve been at the pool so much this summer, the kids have tan lines from wearing their goggles!

I attempted to capture this with the camera. It’s not immediately obvious but I’ve had a couple people ask if they’re sick or something because they look a little off:

Bonus: Derek lost his first tooth today!

A couple of weeks ago my dear friend and fellow cooking aficionado Jennifer came out for a visit with her children. Instantly it occured to me to make spring rolls because I have a great abundance of basil and the kids usually love them. Going with the Asian theme I wanted to make something with rice noodles. When I visit Jennifer at her house in Austin, if we don’t feel like cooking we usually pick up food from Hao Hao, a great Vietnamese restaurant close to her house. The favorite dish of the kids is Pho Ga, a fragrant, aromatic chicken broth with chicken meat, rice noodles, and fresh raw vegetable accompaniments. Searching around the internet I found a recipe on the Steamy Kitchen blog, which referred me back to the source recipe on Viet World Kitchen. My recipe is a slight variation on those two.

When my broth had simmered for a bit, and I tasted it for the first time, I was so excited I both emailed Jennifer and called Zane. “It tastes just like at Hao Hao! It’s divine!”

Photos from the feast:

The makings for the spring rolls - 4 kinds of basil from the garden (lime, cinnamon, Thai, and sweet), mint from the garden, cilantro, Boston lettuce, and dried wrappers.

The tray of finished rolls:

The spread:

Lily, Nicole, and Olivia digging in:

Pho Ga

The other recipes both called for fish sauce, but I didn’t have any so I used salt instead. They also both call for rock sugar but regular seemed to work just fine. I used extra chicken legs to enrich the broth instead of necks, backs, etc. because the price difference was minimal and I think using the meatier legs add more flavor. I think the use of sweet onions is important, but I will admit I am extremely partial to the Texas 1015’s and buy them by the 5 lb bag this time of year.

Broth:

1 whole chicken, plus 4 chicken leg quarters
2 whole sweet onions - I use Texas 1015’s
1 2 inch long hunk of fresh ginger
4 whole cloves
1 whole star anise
3 TB whole coriander seeds
1 bunch fresh cilantro
2 TB sugar
2 TB salt

First char the unpeeled onion and ginger. Ideally use a grill or gas burner if you have them available, I put both in a roasting pan under the broiler. Grill or broil until the skin starts to blacken, turning frequently to get an even char. In my case the ginger skin never blackened but it was bubbling and the ginger had softened a bit underneath. The onion should also feel softer under the charred skin. When done in the broiler, this makes your house smell amazing. Let the onion and ginger cool enough to handle, then remove all the charred and uncharred skin gently, with your fingers or a knife. Rinse off any remaining charred bits, if necessary.

Toast the spices. Put the cloves, star anise, and coriander in a dry non-stick skillet, and heat on medium, stirring frequently, until it starts to smell fragrant. Take off heat and transfer to a bowl to cool.

Remove all the leaves from the coriander, rinse and dry (I use a salad spinner), and set aside for an accompaniment to add later (and to use in spring rolls). Rinse the stems and tie into a bundle with twine.

Meanwhile, rinse the chicken, put all the chicken in a large pot, and cover with water. Bring to a rolling boil, then reduce heat so it stays at a lightly rolling boil. Skim all foam as it rises to the surface until there isn’t any more foam rising, this can take up to 20 minutes. When there isn’t any more foam rising, or only very little, reduce heat so that it’s simmering gently, and add the onion, ginger, toasted spices, cilantro stems, sugar, and salt.

After the chicken has simmered for ~40 minutes total, remove the whole chicken and 2 whole legs. When just cool enough to handle, cut the breasts off the whole chicken and set aside with the removed whole legs. Put the remainder of the whole chicken back in the broth pot. Continue simmering the broth until the chicken has simmered a total of ~2 hours.

When the soup is cool enough, strain it. I like to refrigerate overnight and remove the fat at the surface the next day, but you could skim it off when warm instead.

Soup Assembly:

1 package rice noodles (I used thin vermicelli style, but a flatter shape is more traditional)
Reserved chicken
Broth

Cook the rice noodles according to the package directions in a separate pot. Drain. I put the rice noodles in a basin of water to keep them from sticking together until ready to use.

Remove the leg meat from the bone, and shred or chunk all the meat. You will likely have more than you need, save the rest for chicken salad. I like having both dark and white meat available for different tastes, but if you know your family only likes one or the other don’t bother removing both when making the broth. I keep the meat on the bone until ready to serve because as Andrea Nguyen notes, this keeps it more succulent.

When ready to serve, drain the noodles. Add noodles to each bowl, then chicken chunks, then pour over hot broth. Serve at the table with accompaniments.

Accompaniments:

Bean sprouts, washed and dried
Onion, thinly sliced - either red onion, sweet onion, or green onion
Jalapeño, thinly sliced
Lime wedges
Cilantro leaves, reserved from earlier
Basil leaves
Mint leaves

Pass around the accompaniments for people to add to their hot soup as they desire.

Summer is in full force here in Central Texas, and it’s been hot and dry. As usual, my “vegetable” garden is really just an herb garden, and given the time of the year and the lack of rain there’s not an abundance of those either. But I’m not complaining because the one thing my garden is really good at producing, and is producing right now, is fragrant, delicious basil.

This year I planted 4 varieties. There’s good old sweet basil, which can be used in pretty much anything. There’s a cinnamon basil and a lime basil, both of which go well in spring rolls. There’s a Thai basil that I planted late so I haven’t tried it yet, but I intend to give it a shot in the spring rolls this week.

See, that’s the only problem with all this basil - I only have two things I normally use it in, pesto and spring rolls. Pesto is Lily’s favorite food (or so she tells me), and I’m not tired of it yet, but the boys have started complaining about us eating it more than once a week. Spring rolls everyone in the house loves, we haven’t had a “spring rolls, again???” situation yet, but they are more labor-intensive to make so I don’t make them as frequently. Thus, I needed to find another use for the basil, and remembered this gem of a soup.

It’s a traditional French vegetable soup, easy to make and extremely healthy too. What makes it is the seasonings - the usual salt and pepper of course, then rich saffron (in the version I use), and finally the pistou. Pistou is basil, garlic, and olive oil, and most recipes use Parmesan cheese too, so it’s just like Italian pesto without the pine nuts; in a pinch you could use leftover or store bought pesto instead.

I base my version off the one in the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. Looking around it seems the use of tomato paste in the pistou at the end is fairly unique to this recipe, others will incorporate tomato into the broth earlier in the cooking, and use fresh tomatoes instead of paste. Also other recipes add the pistou in the individual bowls before serving for the diner to mix in themselves. This is probably a good idea if you know you’ll have leftovers to keep the basil aromas as strong as possible.

My big modification is the use of barley instead of the traditional pasta. You could vary the vegetables, zucchini and summer squash are traditional but Zane doesn’t like them so I probably won’t use those, next time I’ll try it with celery and fennel.

2 cups chopped leeks (white parts)
2 cups diced carrots
2 cups diced boiling potato
1/3 cup pearled barley
Salt
3 quarts water

Put all the ingredients in the soup pot and bring just to a simmer. Lower heat and simmer gently for 40 minutes. Taste and add salt if necessary. Then add:

Black pepper to taste
Pinch of saffron threads
1&1/2 cups diced green beans
1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 piece stale white bread, crumbled

Let this simmer another 20 minutes. In the meantime, make the pistou:

4 TB tomato paste
1/4 packed cup fresh basil leaves
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed

Put in a small food processor (I love my mini chopper) and pulse well, scraping down the sides occasionally, until it becomes a paste. Add:

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 - 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Start out with 1/4 cup oil and pulse until it is a smooth paste. It should be spreadable and move easily in the processor but not be runny or oozing oil. Add more oil if needed, until you reach the desired consistency.

Put the pistou in a bowl and add a ladle-full of the hot stock. Mix well, add another ladle and do the same, then add the thinned pistou to the soup pot. Alternatively, dish the soup out and top with or swirl in a spoonful of the pistou.

That’s it! Everyone loved it but Derek, but he’s picky so we won’t hold that against the soup .

It was very hot.  Can you tell?

I am so very behind on posting on the blog. But, now that I am unemployed for the summer, I should have lots of time to catch up!

To begin with, Miss Lily has been kicking ass and taking names in the awards department. She got second place for 1st grade for the entire district in a local art contest honoring Salinas, a local well-known artist. Her artwork was prominently displayed on Main Street and she got a lovely medallion at the awards ceremony. Here she is posing with her art at the ceremony:

She’s also placed for the second year in a row in the public Library bookmark contest (got 3rd place) and apparently is getting a special award from the Austin Science Fair Tuesday, which she knows nothing about… I will post up more when I know exactly what it is too!

School’s been winding down in general so the timing of my not working has been just perfect, as it allows me to do things like bring Fritz up to school to show the classes, and to participate in the annual kindergarten teddy bear picnic with Derek:

Also in the Ellzey news, our very good friends Marcellus and Bronwen got married at the beginning of this month. Here’s some pictures from their wedding, including Lily and Derek posing in a massive tree - it was at a lovely park in Austin’s hill country:

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of going to Las Vegas with my good friend Donna. Here we are enjoying our stroll outside of one of the casinos… I think it was The Venetian… or maybe the Bellagio…

While in Vegas, I had the pleasure of meeting up with my cousin Jonathan, who I hadn’t seen in years, and his new wife Naoko:

We had a bit of excitement last week when we realized there was a snake living in the garage and lurking right by the door going outside. After much rearranging of junk, we were finally able to capture it and release it down the street. The good news is that despite the similarities to a copperhead, it appears to be a harmless rat snake:

Coming soon - pictures from Lily’s play (yesterday and today!).

Introducing Fritz the Hedgehog: