Saturday, September 27, 2008

Weekend OFF!!!!

For the first time in quite awhile.... John and I have NOTHING to do this weekend! No plans, no babysitters, no dressing up, no going places when we would rather hang out at home!! Don't get me wrong.... we are definintly "going out" kind of people but there comes a time when it's nice to just hang out at home with NO plans :-)

So we decided that we were going to cook some cool things this weekend with the time we had....

We both absolutely LOVE ethnic cuisine.... and we love being in the kitchen together (we would probably love it more if there was more space but we just sling a few cuss words at each other and keep on cooking :-)

So yesterday I made Vegetable Tempura with this really tasty honey dijon yogurt dipping sauce and John made open faced hot pork sandwiches (that's not ethnic but we have bout 3 lbs. of pulled pork to use up before it's old!).... then today we decided to make some VIETNAMESE!!! It has to be my favorite style of food on the planet! My best friend growing up was vietnamese and I loved eating at her house. I would eat dinner with my fam and then save room, go over to her house, and eat the left overs ;-) My favorite was "snot soup".... well, that's what I called it back then but now I know its called Pho :-) And I don't mean CHINESE either, I mean actual Vietnamese cuisine, not made to american taste buds :-)

Now I don't blog THAT much about cooking but I most definintly had to snap some shots of this process and how great it turned out!! It's not EXACTLY authentic but pretty damn close! We made Bún Thịt Nướng (pork with vermicelli and raw veggies) topped with Nuoc cham (a sweet diluted fish sauce) and Cha Gio (vietnamese eggrolls).... We even took a family trip to the local Oriental Grocery Store (which is hella cheaper then WalMart!!!) Here we go!!!!
To find these spring roll shells was like finding a needle in a haystack!
Making Nuoc Cham.... the ingredients.
Cha Gio filling.
Now..... I have never really "fried" anything before. I don't like it actually, I think it's unhealthy and makes the kitchen stink.... BUT I made an exception for egg rolls :-)

TA DA!!! The finished project!

The kids even liked it! Yay for Mom and John!!!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a joy, the glimpse of your life!!! :) Looks like the Kiddos' like the food?!?!? :)

Jerry Critter said...

I just finished dinner. I came up here to check out the blogs, and now I am hungry again.

THANKS A LOT! @#@!$%!!! (Kitchen cuss words)

ChiTown Girl said...

Wow, I'm impressed with you two! That all looks delicious. And, good for you for being able to have a nice, relaxing weekend! I can't say that I actually remember what that's like, but good for you! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Yay for bun thit nuong with cha gio!! I'm super-impressed that your kids liked fish sauce :-) Go mom and John indeed!

Allie said...

Wow! That looks like an amazing meal.

YanniFan said...

We had Vietnamese food at a local restaurant in St. Pete. It was fantastic!! First time for me and Moose. The spring rolls were out of this world. They were the onces you just roll in the wrapper. I had a chicken dish that was great.........sorry...don't know the name of it. We did see a large family (vietnamese) eating pho. I want to try that!