I’ve always loved the cleverness of the names of Pho places around here: What the Pho, Pho King~ pretty witty. I’ve also always wanted to try pho, it just sounds like health and warmth in a bowl, but the innate meatiness of it left me thinking I’d never get a spoonful of it. Ahh, the charm of elusiveness. Then on New Year’s day my sister-in-law casually mentioned she has made a vegetarian version and it is delicious…what?! Why hadn’t I ever thought of that? She also gets a veggie version at a nearby restaurant, but of course did not know if it was gluten free or not. She sent me the recipe the next day because I wasted no time in nagging her for it, and it was full of wheat-things and mushrooms, which my husband really doesn’t like and I’m not a big fan either, so I looked on the web for more ideas and came up with two that looked perfect to combine. I used what I had instead of getting new ingredients, and it turned out delicious~ warming and healthy and different than I had ever tasted. Here are the links to the two recipes I used: http://www.elliemay.com/soups/VegetarianPho.html and http://www.food.com/recipe/vegetarian-pho-238765. I should have written down exactly how I combined the two, but I did not. What I did do is use the powder form of cloves because I did not have the buds, and it worked our well. It is really an easy broth to make with a lot less cutting than normal, so I’ll definitely keep experimenting with it and when I have a winning recipe, share it here.
spice of life blog 