Nate is the Techie / Barbecue-y half of the House of Annie team. Born in Hawaii, his favorite hobby is surfing...WEB surfing that is.
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We went to Pho Y #1 Restaurant on Capitol Expressway near Silver Creek Rd in South San Jose for dinner one night. It’s supposedly the best place for pho in San Jose. But in a city with the highest concentration of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam, that’s a bold statement to make and a hard reputation to maintain.
I wasn’t feeling like all those assorted beef cuts you usually get in pho, so I just ordered mine with beef meatballs.
It’s not bad, but I don’t think it’s the best pho. The broth here is nothing special – it doesn’t make me go “ahhhhh” when I take that first sip. The broth over at Beef Noodle #1 across the way is better, IMO.
“Avocado shake?” A lot of people look skeptical upon hearing those two words. It’s true that avocados are fruits but they don’t have a typical fruity sweetness to them like bananas or blueberries. No matter; that’s what sugar (or in this case, Splenda) is for 🙂
The ingredients are simple: one avocado, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, some ice chips, and some milk to cover.
Put it in a tall cup, stick in the hand blender, and buzz until smooth. Sweeten with sugar / Splenda to taste.
I love the creaminess that the avocado brings, plus the fresh flavor. Try mixing in some other fruits or flavors if straight avocado is too much for you. Let me know what combinations you come up with!
Like a lot of people, we don’t get nearly enough fresh fish in our diet. Fish is so expensive nowadays! Recently, some friends of ours came back from a fishing trip to Alaska. They had almost a hundred pounds of fish that was caught in the wild, cleaned, and packed frozen. Of course, they couldn’t eat it all so we were lucky to get a portion of their haul 🙂
These are four roasts of Arctic Char, a fish similar to trout but is ocean going. I love the cute pink dots going down the side. The fish was unbelievably fresh. It was already cleaned, but somehow were missing the heads (darn it!). I seasoned the inside with s&p and stuffed the cavity with a sprig of rosemary, a few sprigs of thyme, and some thin slices of lemon. Then I secured the cavity with toothpicks.
Fosco had a really long post describing in detail how he made his famous Alabama-style pulled pork for his family. Read it if you want to know everything about the process. If you just want the bare facts, read on.
I took 3 pork shoulders: 1, 9 lb bone-in and 2, 7 lb boneless butts. I prepared a double batch of “Southern Succor” rub from the “Renowned Mr. Brown” recipe to rub on the pork butts. Then I made an injection marinade of apple juice, salt, sugar, water and W sauce plus some of the rub. My pork shoulder injection technique needs serious help. I made a total mess of the kitchen when I sprayed marinade all over as I pulled the needle out of the butts. 😛
After injecting the butts, I rubbed them down then put them in a roasting bag and set them in the fridge to marinate.
