Faux Pho Failure

I apologize for the delay since my last post. My husband and I have been eating on other people's dime for the last week or so, and there's no cheaper meal than a free one!

I would like to admit our first real meal failure. I will explain what we did, how it went horribly wrong, and how we realized it could actually be delicious next time.

Crockpots and soups are good ways to stretch a dollar, but it is the summer, so we didn't want anything too heavy.

I decided we should try to make Pho. Which, in making the link to Wikipedia to explain what it is, I realized I have always mispronounced. (I guess it is "Fah"). Pho is a Vietnamese soup with lovely cilantro and lime flavors.

So we set some organic and free range chicken broth chicken broth in a crockpot with some water in it as well. We used about one carton. We then put in two free range chicken breasts. Then...this is where we went horribly awry, we decided to "flavor" the broth all day. In went a ton of chopped cilantro, and a lime: chopped in half, but the whole thing, rind and all. Mistakes one and two right there.

We get back, and we add ramen last minute to our individual bowls. A pack each, at .10 a pack. What a bargain! Then we took a sip.

BITTER. Our Pho was a Bitter failure. Instead of the bright, citrus broth we had hoped for, the rind of the lime and the cooked down cilantro made the soup have such an aftertaste that we couldn't drink any more of it. We ate the noodles quickly and dumped the rest of the crockpot out.

However, I think this will be a success next time if we flavor the broth at the end, at the same time as adding the ramen. So, a successful faux pho recipe looks something like this.

Add chicken broth and chicken breast to a crockpot. Cook all day on low. Come home, spoon into bowls, add a package of ramen per bowl. Offer fresh lime, cucumber, and cilantro for flavoring. Enjoy.

Price per serving if this meal had been successful? About $1.50

I'll try again soon, once the bitter agony of defeat is out of my mouth.