Faux Pho

It was a brisk 25 below this morning in our little part of Alaska, postively HOT out there. HA! Lunch called for something hot and spicy, guaranteed to keep colds away while melting you from the inside out. A quick panicky search turned up rice stick noodles(SCORE) and a fake pho was soon bubbling away.

Pho (Fuh), is Vietnamese soup made with rice noodles, broth, maybe some veggies, maybe meat and easy to adapt to whats on hand. I've had chicken, seafood, beef and vegetarian Pho and loved every one of them. Today ours was faux because about the only thing I had on hand were the rice noodles, the rest was simply bluff and bluster. And desire, I wanted Pho I was getting Pho!

I started with the rice noodles and soaked them in hot water while I worked on the rest of the soup. I chopped a couple carrots, celery stalks and a bit of onion into a pot, added 2 cups of broth and 4 cups of water. I let that simmer while I rustled up a few more ingredients, a hand full of fresh spinach leaves, garlic, ginger, basil(a MUST for good pho!), ponzu (citrus vinegar) and fish sauce. I chopped up the spinach and basil and threw that in, then added a chopped clove of garlic and a bit of minced ginger. Then I added the ponzu and fish sauce in small amounts until it tasted about right, then I threw in the rice noodles, served in bowls and topped it with a small dollop of crunchy peanut butter and called it faux pho. My husband and I were extremely satisfied. I made sandwiches for my kids and they preferred a big bowl of hot noodle soup to the sandwiches. Poor poor organic homemade jelly.

Flying by the seat of my pants never tasted so good! 10 years ago I never would have pulled this off, because I was too afraid to mess it up. You can cook without a recipe too, start with something you know and love and go from there. It's so much fun and delicious too.

Peace and Love--