Goodmorning VIETNAM!

I can't believe it has been a week since we had Trang (pronounced Chung) and Son over to cook a Vietnamese meal with us. They are both from the Hanoi area of Vietnam. These two work with Scott, and they were so willing and nice to come over and show us the ways of truly authentic Pho and Vietnamese spring rolls! We LOVED both those dishes and Vietnam, and our re-creation last week did not disappoint! I mean, how could it with the meat cooking for hours on end, and using a literal beef bone to flavor the broth!

Here they are, getting to work in the kitchen. Trang prepared things for about 4 hours before coming over, and we spent another 3 once they got here cooking every ingredient to perfection. We cut and grilled onions to make shallots. There was nothing store bought in this meal!

Trang is a certified chef. Why she is getting a masters in accounting at BYU, I don't know. She should be a cooking instructor!!! :)

We have already been to the Asian market to get ourselves our own rice paper!

She taught us every step to create the most tasty and beautiful spring roll! It's all in the folding!

We could NOT wait to try them, so we shared a roll mid preparations!

YUM. YUM. YUM. We love Vietnamese food because it is so fresh and natural! You just feel GOOD eating it! See that plate of brussel sprouts in the back? That's not for everyone to share, we had a plate each!

And this Chrysanthemum herbal tea is the perfect pair to the meal. It has this natural sweetness from the flower, but no added sugar. We put mint in it to get it even more flavor. And don't worry, we had our picture from Ha Long Bay, Vietnam out to set the mood!

Now for the Pho! This is a much more time intensive dish. I didn't take pics of everything, but each ingredient is prepared individually, then placed into the wide-mouth bowl. The beef bone broth is then poured over it at the last second.

MMMMMmmm! What I would give for that bowl of Pho tonight!

We had such a great time, thanks Trang and Son for showing us the ways :)

Next, it's our turn to show you a traditional American meal!