A few weeks ago, I got to try pho for the first time.  The first thing I thought about it was: I love this!  The second thing I thought was: I’m going to have to try to replicate this.  Unfortunately, all the pho recipes I found online were highly complex.  They required too much time and effort for me.  In addition, they required ingredients that would be difficult for me to find.  (Especially since I keep a kosher kitchen.)

Luckily, while browsing the supermarket shelves, I stumbled upon Pacific Foods’ mushroom broth.  Now pho isn’t usually made with a mushroom broth, but the vegetarian pho recipes I read mentioned cooking the broth with mushrooms before straining them (and some of the other ingredients) out.

I decided to come up with a quick and easy pho recipe.  Now, I know this isn’t traditional pho.  That’s why I like calling it Faux Pho.  (That and I’m a big fan of alliteration thanks to years of watching Good Eats with Alton Brown.)

First, we start with our ingredients:

For the record, that’s 1 package of broccoli florets (around 12 oz), 2 packages of mushroom broth (64 fluid oz total), rice noodles (16oz), snow peas (about a big handful), and onions.  (In my case, I selected 2 small Vidalia onions thinking they’re sweeter and my kids might be more likely to eat them.)

First, I cooked the rice noodles according to the package directions (boil water, toss in noodles, cook for 4-5 minutes, drain and rinse),

Next, I trimmed the snow peas, sliced the onions into rings, and then sliced those rings in half.  Quick tip: to avoid the "onion cry", freeze your onions for a bit before slicing.  Not so much that you’re trying to cut into a frozen-solid onion, mind you, but just enough that the enzymes that make you cry don’t get released as much.

After that, I sautéed the onions in a little olive oil.  (I remade this yesterday and added some garlic too just because everything tastes better when cooked with garlic.)

When the onions began to caramelize, I tossed in the broth and increased the heat.

After the broth began to boil, I turned the heat down and tossed in the broccoli.

Two minutes later, I tossed in the snow peas.

A minute later, I removed the soup from the heat entirely and pho was ready to be served.

To assemble the pho, first put some rice noodles in a bowl.

Next, add some veggies from the soup pot.

Finally, top off with broth.

Serve with hoisin sauce and/or Sriracha sauce or neither if you prefer.  You could also toss some bean sprouts and/or jalapenos in just before serving depending on how you like your pho.

So how does it taste?  Well, it won’t ever replace real pho, that’s for sure.  Don’t make this and expect that you’re going to get the same pho that you’d get in a good Vietnamese restaurant.  (If they made pho this way, they wouldn’t be a good Vietnamese restaurant.)  Still, it’s a decent facsimile especially if you only have a short time to prepare dinner, are craving some pho, and can’t go to a Vietnamese restaurant to get some.

For awhile now, B has been exclaiming how wonderful a Vietnamese dish called pho is.  Unfortunately, since it is usually made with a beef broth, it looked like I wouldn’t be able to partake.  Then, we found a local place that had vegetarian pho!  Yes, this pho contains a vegetable broth.

B went with her mother one day and raved about how good their food was.  She wanted to go back to eat more pho and I wanted to go try it out as well.  Recently, we got the chance to do just that.

We started with some My Linh summer rolls.  These have rice paper wrapped around noodles, lettuce, cucumber, bean sprouts, mint and basil.  We added in shredded tofu and a vegetarian sauce.

These were delicious.  Very light and refreshing.  There’s a lot in an order, so this could be either a meal in itself or an appetizer for two.

Next, came the pho.  Pho is basically rice noodles and onions in a broth.  Bean sprouts, basil, jalapeno, lime, hoisin sauce, and Sriracha sauce are served on the side so you can add as much or as little as you like.

Pho can also have various add-ins.  B had her pho with beef broth and added in beef brisket.

I added tofu, snow peas, and broccoli to my veggie broth pho.

The pho was amazingly good.  You definitely need both a spoon AND fork to eat this soup.  I added all of the sides to my pho, but went easy on the Sriacha.  Still, it had a good kick to it.  I’ll definitely need to get some rice noodles from the store so I can try making my own pho one day.

Have you ever tried pho?  Have you ever tried making it at home?

Passover is rough on JSL.  Most of the foods he likes eating aren’t allowed so he becomes even more restricted than normal.  Given that one of the foods that he loves are matzoh balls, I figured we’d make some.

First you start off with your ingredients: 1 cup matzoh meal, 2 teaspoons of salt, 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil, 4 eggs, and 4 tablespoons of broth or water.

Combine the ingredients in a bowl.

Stir well.

Then refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Next, roll into balls and drop into boiling water (or broth).

Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, drain, and your matzoh balls will be ready to eat.

Freshly made matzoh balls are delicious and really take minimal effort.  Given that we have a lot of matzoh meal left over, I think we’ll be making many more batches in the future.

Yesterday was Pi Day, March 14th (aka 3/14).  To celebrate, I went out with JSL and purchased an apple pie.  We also got a carton of vanilla ice cream.  Once we got home, the pie was sliced and served with the ice cream and generous helpings of whipped cream.

The boys might be too young to realize just what Pi means, but they enjoy any "holiday" where the celebrating takes the form of eating dessert.  NHL even made me proud by realizing that we get "Ultimate Pi Day" (his terminology) in 2 years: 3/14/15.

What is your favorite kind of pie?

Sure, you can go to Disney World and look at the decorations.

You can see the various trees.

Along with the wide array of ornaments on them.

But there’s one "decoration" that smells fantastic and is actually edible.  I’m talking about the gingerbread house in Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort.

This is no ordinary gingerbread house, though.  Check out their ingredients list.

I’m a big fan of any recipe that includes 700 pounds of chocolate.

There were, of course, little extra-Disney touches here and there like the scenes just above the windows.

The house smelled fantastic.  And, just to make things better, they were selling pieces of it.  Ok, maybe not actual pieces, but they were selling gingerbread cooked from the same recipe as the house.

Sadly, the line was too long for us to wait on it at the time.  If it tasted half as good as it smelled, though, it must have been fantastic gingerbread.

This is a yearly event so if you ever find yourself in Disney World in December, make sure to head to the Grand Floridian to check out the giant gingerbread house.