i made this :: PHOMG

It's no secret after this and this post that I am a phonatic.  Hunter and I found a good pho restaurant in Bremerton last summer but other than that, we kind of took some time away from the pho.  I know, I can hardly believe it as I type it either.  A few weeks ago on a rainy afternoon Hunter and I had a lunch date at Noodles and More { one of my favorite restaurants in Steamboat } and ordered tofu + veggie pho for lunch for the first time in several months.  Since that day, the pho cravings are back...and they are back in full force.

Classic Beth: I found a way to get back to Noodles at least once a week, a lot of the time, twice a week.  It quickly turned into a situation where I never even had to order with the waiter as they knew when they saw me walk in what I would be ordering.  This was really { really, really } good for my happy stomach, but really { really, really } bad for my { assumed } MSG intake and my wallet.  Like a gift from the We Want You to Keep Eating Pho but Also Want to Help You Save Money Gods, this blog post entered my life, and I knew what I had to do.

I had to make the pho at home.  I just had to.

For all intents and purposes, this recipe came together in a snap.  Hunter and I went for a hike after work last night and when we got home, I got to cookin'.  

I have this awful habit of omitting ingredients in the recipe if I don't have it, don't feel like buying it and/or don't trust their flavors.  That being said, I had a few changes to the recipe; I left out the fennel, cardamom pods and coriander seeds. The main reason for leaving these out was having just moved we had quite a few unexpected expenses in trying to build our pantry back up and the cheap Beth just didn't have it in me to spend an additional $10+ dollars on those 3 ingredients.  I'm thrilled to say that even without those flavors in soup, the broth turned out exceptionally well.  I was stunned.  Stunned!  My friend and I Phil often talk about the risk of star anise and cloves overwhelming the broth.  The first step in the broth recipe calls for dry roasting the cinnamon sticks + anise + cloves until they were aromatic.  It smelled fantastic but a little voice in the back of my head kept nagging about how this whole broth was going to end up being a clove broth and I was wasting all this time, energy and ingredients for a clove broth.  In the end, the broth was lovely and not clovey at all.

At the very end I threw in some thinly sliced carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, cilantro and some roasted tofu into the broth pot to lightly steam before serving the soup over some brown rice noodles.  We topped with bean sprouts, basil and jalapeño and used hoisin sauce and sriracha to spice things up.  Being the Humble Chef I am { ha! }, all throughout  dinner I couldn't/wouldn't stop exclaiming how amazing dinner was.    It was so good that next time I think I will do without the tofu, which is basically unheard of for me.  Phil had the idea to make a huge batch of the broth to freeze in small batches to pull out for individual meals which I think is brilliant and most certainly something I will do in the near future.

I was so excited/hungry that I didn't get a close up of the bowls, but just trust that it was off the charts.  Now, all we have to do is find our pho spoons from storage and our home pho experience will be 100% complete!

I'm off to publish this post and go home to my beautiful pho leftovers.  #phobsessed