vegetarian pho-king gold

Hey all.
So I have this odd sort of fascination with Pho, ever since I was introduced by a friend of mine. Something about it is therapeutic - maybe the spices and steam, or maybe that you're eating a gallon of broth and all the trimmings. Either way, I decided to take it on at home.

HOWEVER.

A lot of my friends are vegetarians, and my apartment is a sweat lodge at the moment. So simmering beef knuckles for eight or so hours just ain't gonna happen. Luckily, I found a pretty nifty veghead recipe online that still does the trick.

As follows (thanks elliemay.com)

- Make eight cups of vegetable stock. You can use the cubes, or if you have some good homemade stuff, that's neat too. Again, sweatbox - I used the cubes.
- Put a large pot on medium-high heat, with nothing in it. Then toss:

• 1 small unpeeled onion, quartered


• 2 unpeeled shallots, halved


• 8 garlic cloves, halved


• a 1-inch piece of ginger, coarsely sliced


• two 3-inch cinnamon sticks


• 2 pods of star anise


• 4 cloves

in. DO NOT (yes, I mean it) put olive oil or any such nonsense in. You basically want to burn these suckers - I have no idea why, but getting a good scorch on these things does the job. When you're content, and your apartment is smoky - toss in the broth and 3 tbsp of soy sauce. Simmer this sucker for twenty-five minutes and strain into another pot.
It'll look like this:



Then, cook some rice vermicelli (they look like sticks of rice) - about half a handful - according to package directions. Set these in bowls to keep warm.
No picture. I tried, it looks pretty fugly.

Toss on some sliced green onions, and prepare your platter of accoutrements.
I used

• mint


• lime


• bean sprouts (big ones

Isn't that purty? Also, keep a bottle of this nearby:
You can find it at any respectable Asian grocer. Sriracha works too, but I like the chunky stuff where you can see pieces of garlic and chilis. - I used a Vietnamese place nearby for everything in this recipe. It also totalled about.. twelve dollars for four LARGE (there is no other way with Pho) servings.

{Side note: I heard a story once about a guy who went to the address on the back of the bottle, and it was an empty lot. Thus is the mystery of the most amazing hot sauce in the universe. I use it on pizza and eggs like it's going out of style, and has already shown up in next year's American Apparell catelog.}

To finish!
- Top your noodles and onions with broth. Use a massive bowl. Trust me. You'll eat it all.
- Rip up some mint (or basil, that's nice too.) leaves and toss them on.
- Toss in a handful of sprouts
- Squeeze a lime wedge
- Stir in some hot sauce

and voila:
Giant bowl of Vietnamese cure-all.

{Side note the second: Pho is apparently pronounced "fuh" - think of that next time you go to the Pho-King.}

pizza? ohnomnomnom

Okay. So this is the latest post after months of not posting - basically, I've lived at home for a few weeks, and barely cooked. So to start writing again, I figure I can write about the best home-made pizza I've ever had.

If you know me, you know I cook A LOT of pizza. With a lot of weird things. But it's still sort of kind of pizza. Here's the basic recipe:

- Good dough, about fist size
- Good sauce, about half a cup (cook chilis, garlic,and crushed tomatoes together for eons - there's a good sauce)
- Good mozzarella cheese, about... a heaping half-cup grated.

Heat your oven between 450 and 500 degrees.
Spread out the dough BY HAND - but not too much, or else it gets messy. Get it really thin.
Ladle on sauce, spread it around
Put on cheese.

Here's where it gets tricky.

Put it in the ludicrously hot oven, aiming to not get your eyebrows singed.
Cook until the bottom is well done. I mean nice and well done - like this:


(side note:this is known as a "pizza upskirt" shot. google it. i dare you.)

THEN
Take out, turn your oven broiler on full whack. Put the rack close to the broiler (the top element)

Put your pizza in and watch the cheese and top crust go all beautiful and golden brown and delicious. This is pretty critical if you have thin crust pizza, so you don't have to cook it to black on the bottom to get some colour on top.

Take out, let rest, and then eat the whole thing in one go like I did before I posted. So no pictures. Sorry folks, next time. Anyways.

VARIATIONS:

Put some genoa salami on it - either on top or under cheese, depending how you like it (crispy or hidden.

Saute spinach, lots of garlic, and sauce, then top with that in lieu of sauce. Don't do this before a date (smelly breath + spinach in your teeth = no kiss goodnight)

THE MARC SPECIAL - caramelized onions, blue cheese, and crispy (burnt) bacon with everything else. This turned into pizza soup once, but IT WAS STILL GOOD. (even if a certain someone's mom thinks I'm a loser.)

OR toss some cheese curds or old cheddar in with the mozzarella. makes it a bit tastier, I find.


That's all for now. (hopefully) more to come soon!

easy dinner

As you might be able to tell by the lack of posts lately - I've been pretty busy with work and life, so I haven't been able to post. Some family news lately, of the not-so-good sort, so I've been on my toes.

As a result, I've been making some pretty simple, easy dinners lately, and it's actually kind of nice. You forget about fancy foods, long times cooking, and just realize what difference simple good ingredients make to a nice meal. Like bacon. Glorious bacon.

Anyways...

Bacon-spinach-garlic-goodness

Cook some nice bacon down in lardons in a pan, to get a lot of fat rendered. Wilt a good bit of spinach in the bacon fat (use olive oil instead, if you're a veg-head), and toss in some chopped garlic, salt and pep.

When that looks good, toss in some tomato sauce, simmer for a bit, and toss this with pasta. Add a little more salt if you're gross like me, and enjoy.

If you're quick, you'll notice I don't bother with exact amounts, because I don't know them, use your judgment, and failing that - someone else's.

wait, what?

what.

Pulled pork - the love of my life

After too many tries, I finally nailed a decent recipe for pulled pork. It took only four hours to make, and was worth every second. Now I just need to explain my excitement this to my vegetarian friends, and not have them hate my life.

As such...

Pulled pork (Adapted from Apartment therapy - kudos to them)

4 to 5 pound pork shoulder, bone-in
1 tbsp chipotle
1 tsp ancho
1 tsp cayenne
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium yellow onions, peeled and cut into wedges
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 tall boy of beer (I used Grolsch)

A couple hours before you make this, give the pulled pork a good rubdown (intentionally dirty pun) with the spices mixed with the olive oil. Let it sit for a while in the fridge, then for about half an hour on the counter to warm up to room temp.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Put a cast iron dutch oven on mid-high heat for a while, until it starts smoking. Sear the pork on either side for about two minutes. Your apartment will smell amazing, and your neighbors will love you.

Remove the pork, pour in the beer, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Bring this to a simmer for bit. Toss the pork back in, cover, and put in the oven for a good four hours.

Check the pork once or twice with a instant-read thermometer (aka why I've never given anyone food poisoning). When it's at 190F in the middle, it's done.

Remove to a pan, and shred with a couple of forks. Mix with your favorite barbecue sauce- I use and swear by Cattle Boyz, but you can use whatever. Don't skimp out here.

Put on nice fresh white bread with coleslaw, and rejoice in the fact that you've overcome your past failures at cooking and have made your barbecue-crazy dad a happy man.

Pics (with added links! because i'm bored and hungover):

Post-rubdown

Searing

In the big swim
Pre-shred (note the bbq sauce and container of liquid)

After shredding

My obvious reaction to the food

What's in your fridge?

So after stumbling upon this and this link, basically just checking out what's in people's fridge, I thought for an early post it might be interesting to let you enjoy your voyeuristic pleasures. You sick weirdos.

So what does my fridge say about me?

Apparently, I like beer (as evidenced by the case of good stuff and cans of liquid failure), barbecue sauce (two large bottles in the door) and pickles (the gallon in the door). And not much else.



What does your fridge have?

Comfort food for a rainy southern ontario day

I figured I'd toss this one in too, one of my favorite recipes for when Guelph is being Guelph.

French Onion Risotto

• 2 red onions
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 4 cups beef stock
• olive oil
• butter
• parmesan/asiago/some kind of good hard cheese
• mozzarella
• herbes de provence (thyme, basil, savory, whatever, really)
  

Caramelize the onions in the butter, olive oil, and more salt than you might think necessary. This takes time. Be patient. You'll know it's done when it smells amazing and the onions are reduced to barely what they used to be, and the neighbors are no longer mad at you for the smell of onions cooking for hours.

Reach for your herbes de provence shaker, or cut up some fresh herbs from your herb garden (it's like, fifteen bucks for all you need for a summer. do it.) and toss them in, cook a little while, then add the rice.

Sloooowly (a ladle at a time) add in the stock. In the meantime, spread out your parmesan on some parchment paper, toss it in the toaster oven until it gets all brown and crispy. Set aside.

When all the stock is added, toss in a few small hunks (about a half cup worth) of mozzarella, and stir to combine/melt in.

Serve with pieces of the browned cheese on top, and feel better about the crappy weather outside.