Phõ

I am a Pho King Queen!! When I lived in SD, everyone was crazy about Pho, but I never felt adventurous enough to try it...I don't know why. But when I saw that even the Crockpot Lady made it and found it delicious, i decided to give it a whirl. The result was a crowd pleaser!!
Ingredients:
--6 cups beef broth or stock
--2 inch chunk of ginger grated
--1 t anise
--1 t ground cinnamon
--2 sliced green onions
--1 lb thin sliced beef (I found a good priced hunk and thin sliced it myself!)
--1 t fish sauce (nuoc nam)
--1/2 t black pepper
--1 t red chili paste
--package of rice noodles
for garnish: bean sprouts (with heads cut off), chopped green onions, lime, cilantro, thai basil (which i could not find)
Directions:
1. Throw everything but the noodles into the crockpot and leave it on low for 4-6 hours. The house will smell funny..not like food, but like licorice. It is normal, its the anise.
2. Boil the rice noodles separately as the instructions on the package say to.
3. To serve, put some noodles in a bowl, ladle the "soup" and garnish with yummy stuff. It wasn't spicy enough for me, so i added crushed red pepper to my bowl.

I've never had restaurant Pho, but this was damn good!

*use low sodium broth and this is fight food