I made the Vietnamese very well known dish called Pho, which is a sort of noodle soup, and it turned out pretty nice. Better than I thought. BTW this post might be repetitive for many following me on Facebook [FB] as I have uploaded the pictures there but wanted to give out my recipe to you so you can make it at home as well and enjoy different cuisine.
So it was a long weekend and at my place I try to show off my culinary skills during holidays. Also, I try my best to cook every Sunday morning but for the reason or the other it doesn’t happen… Anyways, coming back to the point, it is President’s Day long weekend. I decided to make Spaghetti on Saturday, February 13, 2010 and it turned out awesome. First time in my cooking I have used red wine and I was excited. I was not planning to use it but then I thought, what the heck, so I did use it and was happy that I made the right decision. Everyone liked it at home and that was the beginning of my inner evil cook to invite me to prepare something new. I was craving Pho for couple of days and tried to see if I can get any Vegetarian Pho, but that was not possible because all the restaurants I knew, were, using chicken broth and not the vegetable broth. So I decided to create my own version of Vegetarian Pho (Noodle Soup).
There are many variations available but I followed the following and I guess it was the closest match I could have got in first shot. It was almost 80% plus match with the originals I have had before. It is very simple and fast to cook. It took me hour and half to shop for groceries and less than hour to cook (the way I wanted to test).
Recipe: Vegetarian Pho, thanks to Vegetarian Times. I followed the basics from Vegetarian Times but added some of my own variations to it while preparing it.
According to Vegetarian Times recipe, Nutritional Information, for Pho is as follows:
Per SERVING: Calories 290 Protein 16g Total Fat 5.5g Saturated Fat 1.0g Carbs 42.0g Choelsterol 0mg Sodium 578mg Fiber 3g Sugar 5g
Pretty healthy stuff (I am not a nutritionist but I am sure many things are low enough to eat it every other week) and last but not the least, some photos of my culinary creation! ;-)
Hope you have enjoyed reading and good luck with making one to reveal your inner culinary art.
Enjoy!
Vegetarian Sushi
Yesterday (Saturday, Sept 19, 2009) evening I was working and to take time off thought of making dinner and started looking around what is available and what I can make. I wanted to have something different than usual and was craving for Sushi for long time… My wife and mom are vegetarian. My wife didn’t have positive experience with Japanese cuisine (being a vegetarian, of course, due to limited to no options) and my mom never had Japanese cuisine. I told my wife I want to make vegetarian sushi and at first she was kinda not too happy but being such a kind and caring she told “Go, for it!”. Second hurdle was convincing my mom to have Sushi but she has been very supportive so it worked out pretty well. I was a bit nervous just because of Sea Weed smell (sea food scent, which is not suitable to many vegetarians) and taste might turn them off trying and enjoying the Sushi; but I wanted wanted to make them eat once and go from there. So, I started browsing for vegetarian Sushi recipe online. Food Network is one of the highly watched channel in my home so I went to food network and found couple of recipes. I found Ina Garten’s Vegetable Sushi recipe the easiest and fastest to make. I also went to YouTube and watched couple of videos. I found following videos to be helpful:
I went to Asian (Korean - Japanese) grocery store near my place and got all the ingredients and required tools. I would highly suggest to get Sushi Rice to make sushi because of grain size and stickiness of the rice (It cost me about $6 for 5Lbs of rice). I would also encourage to invest in bamboo sheet (which cost me $0.89, woahaa!) to roll the sushi as shown in Tuna and California roll videos above.
It was fun making Sushi and everyone loved it. It tuned out surprisingly so awesome, off the hook!. It turned out so good than what I had expected. According to my parents I can open a street cart for vegetable sushi as my backup! and make some good money on side. (I am going to take as a positive comment!). Oh, yes and my wife helped me in making potato salad which turned out great too. I took some for my cousins and friends later for them to try and everyone loved it (thats what they told me! I think they were right too!)
Overall, my experience was great. It was fun making Sushi (which I love a lot) for my wife and parents and on top of it everyone loved it which, was icing on the cake for me. Very happy with the outcome! Hope you guys try it and like it. Please add your comments about what you think and if you have tried any other kinds of vegetarian / vegetable sushi please add the link for me and other readers.
