Faux Pho Bo

Faux Pho Bo

Yesterday, after working all day catering a dinner at Delaplane Cellars on Sunday, I moved heaven and earth at work to get my deskwork done and to get home as early as possible to spend some time with Ann. My last stop on the way home is FoodMaxx and it was there that I got a text from Ann asking if we could go out for Thai food for lunch. Knowing that it was already about 1pm and by the time I got home and got the groceries unpacked and we got back into town to the Thai restaurant, it would be every bit of 2pm, I decided that since we generally order a rice noodle soup very similar to pho, that I would just throw together a quick version at home so that we could spend more of our afternoon being with each other and less of our time scurrying about trying to get somewhere.

So I grabbed two bowls of instant pho bo, cilantro, a lime, and a pack of snow peas (because I know how much Ann loves snow peas). At home, I got a red pepper and Thai basil out of the garden and sriracha and hoisin sauce out of the cabinet. I made the soup in the microwave following the directions printed on the sides of the disposable bowls and while they were cooking, I squirted hoisin and sriracha in the bottom of big soup bowls and strung the snow peas.

Here you see the result fully garnished with cilantro, Thai basil, sweet red pepper, sriracha, hoisin, lime, and snow peas. And you know, it wasn't half bad, all doctored up like this. An OK bowl of soup in under 10 minutes: now that's my kind of lunch!

We sat outside under the umbrella and had soup along with a bottle of Taittinger Brut Française Champagne. What else to have with pho? ;)