Zucchini Enchiladas with Pumpkinseed Salsa

Hey, I'm back. It's been a busy August! We're trying to buy a house, so all posts following this one will probably be a little more... uh... economical in nature for a while. For instance, I have some pictures of a salad I made from the contents of my co-worker's desk drawer. I'll post those after this. Anyway...

Zucchini enchiladas. This was epicurious's recipe of the day when I went to their site looking for something to do with the ginormous zucchinis my officemate had given me (thanks, Julia!). So, it was meant to be right from the beginning. The actual title of the original recipe is "Zucchini and Red Pepper Enchiladas with Two Salsas," but come on - that doesn't even hint at the fact that these enchiladas are loaded up with toasted, spiced pumpkinseed puree - by far the coolest element!

These were absolutely delicious, and they held together surprisingly well for our lunch and dinner the next day. I will say that trying to seal these babies together by frying them in oil without having all the goodness drip out the ends and burn was a bit of a challenge, especially in the 100-degree weather we were having that night. In the future, I could possibly be persuaded to leave out the frying and assemble these like soft tacos, just because the frying was such a pain and left me with some finger burns.

The recipe asks for you to grill the vegetables. Yeah... I live in an apartment. I did, however, use this as an excuse to pick up a cast-iron grill pan at Goodwill! I've been very happy with it.

So, the recipe.

Ingredients

For enchiladas:
-1 large white onion, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
-2 red bell peppers, quartered
-3/4 pound medium zucchini, cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices [I had way more zucchini than this, and I used way more - probably why we ended up with enchiladas big enough to eat two, not three of them as a generous meal]
-12 (6-to 7-inch) soft corn tortillas [I used white, and I think they were a little bigger than this]
-1/2 cup vegetable oil
-6 ounces crumbled queso fresco or ricotta salata [I used the queso fresco]

For pumpkin-seed salsa:
-1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh serrano chile, including seeds
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1 1/3 cups raw green (hulled) pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
-1/2 cup vegetable oil
-2 cups chopped cilantro [Mike doesn't like cilantro. I can't remember if I used a little parsley instead, or just ignored this]
-1 1/2 cups water

For tomato salsa [yeah, or you could just use some store-bought salsa]:
-2 medium tomatoes, chopped
-1/4 cup finely chopped white onion
-2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh serrano chile, including seeds
-2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
-Garnish: cilantro leaves

For the tomato salsa: stir together tomatoes, onion, chile, lime juice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.


For the pumpkinseed salsa: cook chile, garlic, cumin, and pumpkin seeds in oil in a 10-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat, stirring, until seeds pop, 4 to 5 minutes.



Transfer 3 tablespoons seeds with a slotted spoon to a bowl and reserve. Purée remaining seeds and oil with cilantro, water, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a blender until smooth.

Start enchiladas:Prepare a gas grill for direct-heat cooking over medium heat.
Preheat oven to 350°F .
Secure each onion round with a wooden pick for grilling. Oil grill rack, then grill vegetables, covered, turning occasionally, until tender (6 to 8 minutes for bell peppers and zucchini; 10 to 12 minutes for onion), transferring to a bowl.

Okay, grilling the vegetables in my little grill pan took many,

many,

many,

many batches.

To make the enchiladas: cut vegetables into strips. Spread 2 teaspoons pumpkin-seed salsa on each warm tortilla and top with some of grilled vegetables, then roll up.

Heat oil (1/2 cup) in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Fry enchiladas, seam side down first, in 2 batches, turning once, until lightly browned and heated through, about 2 minutes per batch.

Transfer enchiladas to plates, then drizzle with remaining pumpkin-seed salsa and sprinkle with reserved seeds and cheese. Serve with tomato salsa.

Yum!

Spoils of Summer - Cherry-Apricot Crisp

I tossed the fruit with a little lime juice, salt, and a little cornstarch. The crisp topping was almond meal, coconut oil, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. I can't remember if I also used a little bit of quick oats for the version that appears in this picture - we had a lot of cherries to use up and I made several batches of crisp! I baked at 350 - 25 minutes, maybe? Just until it gets bubbly.

Coconut Lime Sorbet

I know, I know. The weather in Portland and the Puget Sound has gone to pot, so this tasty little confection won't sound nearly as refreshing as it did when I made it last week. But, you know - file it away for later or something.

This recipe was easy-peasy with an ice cream maker. But even if you don't have an ice cream maker, you could still make a granité by (carefully) pouring the mixture onto a cookie sheet or baking sheet, sticking it in the freezer, and scraping the mixture around every 10/15 minutes or so to prevent it from freezing in a solid sheet. It won't be smooth - but SnoCones aren't smooth, and they're still pretty dang refreshing. Mmm, SnoCones...

So, here's the recipe for the coconut lime sorbet. Mind you, it packs a pretty high-calorie punch because of the cream of coconut (yes, that's right - cream of coconut, not milk - it's the stuff they put in piña coladas). But you only need a little of this stuff, because it punches you in the mouth with sweet and tangy at the same time.

I found the recipe on Epicurious. If I actually persuade anyone reading this post into giving this recipe a shot, and you go to the original link on Epicurious, you'll notice that the reviews are mixed. Most people rave about it, but a few complained that it was horrible and bitter. All I can say is: Read the directions, people (not you - the Epicurious reviewers). It says "Cream of coconut" and even gives you a brand suggestion - Coco Lopez. A quick Google search of Coco Lopez tells you it's the stuff they put in piña coladas - which means you can find it in the mixer aisle. It is not the same as coconut milk - especially not unsweetened coconut milk.

Sorry for the tangent - people just amaze me sometimes. If there are three ingredients - and the first two are water and limes - you'd better make sure you get the third ingredient right. And if you don't, maybe you should take a brief moment to view your methodology with a critical eye, before slamming the recipe.

So, here we go.

Ingredients

• a 15-ounce can cream of coconut (preferably Coco Lopez)
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice [Carrina's note: I needed four limes for this (unfortunately, I purchased 7). They weren't large, but they weren't tiny. Definitely larger than key limes, and with thin skin, which always makes me think they've been allowed to sit and get ripe, creating more juice. I don't know if science backs up that assumption or not, though]

In a bowl whisk together ingredients. Freeze mixture in an ice-cream maker. Transfer sorbet to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

Done and done! So easy. And awfully creamy for a product that doesn't contain dairy.

Noodle Bowl #3 - Mustard Greens

Can I just say that I don't think I'll ever get sick of noodle bowls? They're the only thing I'm in the mood for on Saturday afternoons, and this week I realized that they also have the side benefit of helping me use up unruly produce that is just threatening to get slimey before I get to it.

That said, I don't really expect anyone else to share my interest in the whole thing. But since I've started taking pictures of them, I think I'll just keep doing it. I'll try to title the posts appropriately, so that anyone reading knows it's not an actual recipe.

I had some turkey lemongrass broth, left over from this recipe, sitting in my freezer for the last 4 months. Honestly, I had forgotten to label it and so wasn't sure if it was chicken broth, or turkey lemongrass. When its thawed scent revealed it to be the latter, I used it for a noodle bowl. Yay!

I used:
-2 cups broth
-1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder
-dash soy sauce
-a few drops Sriracha or some other spicy ingredient
-a few drops dark sesame oil
-1 carrot, peeled and sliced thin diagonally
-about 2 cups chopped mustard greens
-1 green onion, chopped
-1 wedge lime, squeezed (or dash seasoned rice vinegar)

Instructions:
Bring broth to a boil. Add five-spice powder, sesame oil, Sriracha, soy sauce, and carrots, and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Return to a non-spilling-over boil, and ramen, and cook for two minutes. Stir in mustard greens and cook for another minute or until wilted. Pour into deep bowl. Squeeze lime into bowl (or splash with rice vinegar). Sprinkle with green onion.

Basil, Melon, and Prosciutto (or Bacon!) Salad with Cayenne

There are a zillion variations on this recipe on the Interwebs, and since I remembered the three main ingredients from when my mom made this several years ago, I don't feel obligated to cite any particular source. Plus, I might have added the cayenne pepper part myself - not sure.

As long as you have enough melon (and it can be canteloupe, honeydew, whatever - I happen to like honeydew better) to serve the number of people you want to serve, the amount of basil and prosciutto/bacon is totally flexible. If you need to use up a strip of bacon from breakfast, use that. You can use as little as one or two large leaves of basil for a few people, and it would still be fine. Or, if you love basil, you can use much, much more.

I tossed the ingredients in a little lime because I had a leftover wedge, but it's not necessary.

Half of a small honeydew melon, combined with the other ingredients (which don't add much volume) yielded us two 6-oz mugs full of salad. Scroll down to the very last picture to see what I consider a "serving."

Hooray honeydew! I was so excited that New Seasons had delicious-looking (and tasting), ripe honeydew halves on sale by the pound, and that I only had to buy half of a teeny one. I know myself, and I know that there is no way I would properly preserve and then use the other half before it went bad. Below is the honeydew shredded up with my new melonballer (I started out trying to make actual melon balls, then decided scraping was the way to go). In the picture, it looks kind of like celery, doesn't it? Weird...

Okay, so the recipe. Like I said, any way you make it, it will taste good. But as a guideline, you will need:

Ingredients

- 1/2 canteloupe or honeydew melon, cut into balls or ribbons with a melonballer, or chopped into 1/2 inch-ish pieces

-1/8 cup chopped prosciutto, or 1/8 cup cooked bacon (cooked/broiled with brown sugar for extra pizazz!)

- 4 or 5 medium fresh basil leaves, ripped into small pieces

-Squeeze of lime juice

-dash of cayenne pepper

-2 shakes of salt

-1/2 teaspoon sugar or 1/2 brown sugar (unless you used bacon with brown sugar already)

Instructions

1. Combine prosciutto or bacon with basil in a bowl or in the melon shell.

2. Combine lime juice, cayenne, salt, and sugar (omit sugar if using bacon cooked with brown sugar) in small bowl. Stir to combine. Toss prosciutto-basil mixture with lime mixture.

3. Add melon pieces and toss to combine.

4. Serve immediately or let sit for awhile if the rest of the meal isn't ready yet. If you're not serving the salad until much later, wait until closer to mealtime to rip up the basil and add it.

Here's the prosciutto. I bought two little slices from the deli counter - it was prosciutto di parma and cost $23.99 a pound, and I paid 57 cents, so... not very much. It looks like it came to about 1/8th of a cup, chopped up.

Note: When my mom made this, she used bacon, and she says that it was broiled with brown sugar on top. If you have bacon at home, you should TOTALLY do that instead. The deli prosciutto was tasty, but the kind in the bag at Safeway (which I used the second time around) can't hold a candle to good ol' bacon.

This next picture is completely irrelevant to the recipe, except that I ended up mixing the salad up in the hollowed-out honeydew, and the shell looked kind of cool in the sunlight. It reminds me of the Wicked Witch of the West's crystal ball!

Here's the salad. We had it with lentil soup. Disclaimer: Unlike his pad kee mao-obsessed wife, Mike is not a fan of the sweet-salty-sour flavor profile. And true to form, he wasn't crazy about this dish. Soooo... not everyone will like it. Only those with good taste. BURN!

Last note: I think the salt drew out a little more honeydew liquid from the honeydew shell - so if your melon is on the not-so-ripe side, you might want to consider lightly salting the melon shell, letting it sit for a while, and then harvesting any juice that gathers up.

Udon Noodles with Soy-Caramelized Shallots and Baby Bok Choy

Okay, I'm mainly posting this because I will never get my fill of pictures of noodles swimming in broth.

I was super hungry on Saturday and had a baby bok choy that had been sitting in the fridge for a week. I had planned to split it between Mike and me at some point during the week, but it kept getting pushed to the back of the fridge. So, I prepared it pretty much the way I did in an earlier post with the Coke-and-lime chicken: seared it on both sides in peanut oil, removed the bok choy and cooked the remaining oil, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, chopped shallot, and a few drops of sesame oil into a glaze, then turned the glaze onto the bok choy. I simmered some udon noodles in chicken broth, water, and some five-spice powder, then dumped the bok choy into the noodles and broth and added a little lime juice. Yum! I will eat udon noodles completely plain, but it's a bonus when they come swathed in something interesting.

Sunsmoke Salsa with Soba Noodles

Hey, a recipe that I didn't get from The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper!

I can't claim that I came up with this idea on my own, because there are many delicious-sounding recipes out there that call for jicama ("HEE-kuh-muh" - there should be an accent over the "i" there) with mango and some sort of grilled or smoky ingredient, and I've drooled over all of them at one time or another.

I think of jicama as a cross between an apple and potato (and am sure that I'm not the first one to make the connection - heck, maybe that's its actual lineage), because it's crisp like an apple but leaves your knife all starchy like a potato. Oh, and because it burns my hands just like potatoes burn my hands - but that's just me and my weird hands.

I was really getting a craving for some kind of salsa on Saturday morning, and found myself in the fortunate (for me - I love grocery shopping when it's quiet) position of having half an hour to kill at Safeway. So I picked up most of these ingredients without knowing exactly what I'd do with them, but knowing that they all sounded good together, at least.

Here's most of the star produce in a group shot - except for the ginger, which is like that guy who can be seen in the back of at least one family photo per vacation, scratching his nose or contorting his face to yell at someone unseen by the camera. What I mean to say by all this is that I ended up not using ginger in this recipe. I think it would have tasted weird.

Here's the jicama! I avoided jicama for a long time after my first experience with it, because it is so difficult to peel with your average-to-dull regular peeler, and I wanted better things for my knuckles than to die a bloody death in their twenty-somethings just because their master wanted to take a shot at "Gracie's Pepper Salad with Jicama" or whatever it was. Jicama skin is tough, or at least it is by the time it gets to the grocery stores where I live! But now I have a serrated peeler, which I think is meant for fruit, but it also does a great job of peeling anything tricky.

And not to show off, but here is my adorable Microplane grater! Actually, I have now invested in three of them total, but here is the one that proved to be the perfect size for grating a little zest off the blood orange. Here it is pretending to be a skyscraper in the most recent "Godzilla" flop:

Convincing, huh? And to the left, it reveals its true stature. I got it for a dollar!

To our right we have the dried chipotle

chiles that figure in the dressing/liquid component for the salsa.

Get a look at that texture on the chipotle! Doesn't it just look like the paper bag that got left in the backyard, partially sheltered by the roof or a garbage can or something, and proceeded to get rained on and dried out by the sun repeatedly for five years?

Anyway, enough yammering about paper bags. Here's the recipe:

Sunsmoke Salsa with Soba Noodles (or other grain of your choice)
For the dressing/liquid part:

• 1/8 cup honey
• Juice from one blood orange (or regular orange! I just think the blood oranges are pretty), about 1/4 cup
• Juice from 1/2 lime
• 1/4 teaspoon zest from orange
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 or 2 dried chipotles chiles (I used 1 but wish I'd used 2), chopped into 4 or 5 easy-to-fish-out pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
  
  Instructions for dressing:
  1. Heat honey and olive oil in a small saucepan (as small as you have, really, so that the chipotles get covered up as much as possible) oon low, or whatever will heat the liquid without burning the honey on your stovetop.
  2. When the honey and olive oil are warmed and thin, add the cumin and the pieces of chipotle. Cover and let the mixture sit a little above low for 15 minutes or so, so that it smells smoky from the chipotle. If it starts bubbling angrily, turn it down.

3. Once the mixture smells nice and smoky, stir in the juice and zest from the blood orange and let the mixture simmer for a few minutes. When it seems "combined" enough and a little syrupy, take it off heat. When it's cool, take out each chipotle piece and squeeze the honey mixture stuck on the inside back into the pan. Let the mixture cool completely before adding the lime juice. You could really just add the lime juice right before you put the meal together. If you put in the lime juice before you are ready to toss the vegetables with the dressing, be sure to whisk the dressing mixture again before combining it with the veggies.

For the salsa and soba noodles:

• 1 carrot, grated
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (or soaked and cooked dried black beans)
• 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1.5 tablespoons finely chopped shallot (or not, if you hate onion breath and think the garlic and green onions will be enough for you)
• 2 red bell peppers, diced, sliced, or whatever you prefer - I did a combination
• 1 medium jicama, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 1 mango, peeled and diced
• 1/2 serrano pepper, seeded, deveined, and finely chopped
• 1 avocado
• Cooked and cooled soba noodles for however many people you are serving - or rice, or pasta, or whatever else you think would taste good under the salsa!

Instructions for the salsa:

1. Combine all ingredients except the black beans and the avocado in a large bowl. Toss to combine. Drizzle dressing into bowl, adding it in two installments if the bowl is on the smaller side. Toss salsa to coat with dressing.

2. Peel and dice avocado. Spoon 1 cup or so of salsa over each person's plate of cold soba noodles; sprinkle black beans and avocado over each serving. Or, if serving family-style, place the black beans and diced avocado over the rest of the salsa in the bowl. Serve promptly.

The "serve promptly" is so the avocado won't brown. As long as you save the avocado-chopping step for last, you've got oodles of time. I'm anticipating this salsa will keep for days (and will report back if that proves not to be the case. And hey, check out the nifty avocado-saver ("saver" - I hope) I MacGyvered together so I can have more avocado at work tomorrow. Right now, it's sitting in a mug in the fridge.

Of course, only after creating the limado (as I plan on calling it) did I remember that we're going to my brother-in-law's for dinner tomorrow, so we won't get to use the leftover avocado for dinner. So, a true test: a 48-hour avocado?! We shall see.

One final note: I described sprinkling the black beans and avocado separately on top because my black beans were a little on the mushy side and were going to be crushed under the weight of the rest of the ingredients. Beans of a springier nature should be able to handle the incorporation just fine, and adding them to the leftover salsa will do wonders for their taste, I'm sure.

Chicken with Lime Juice and Coca-Cola(!), plus Red Quinoa and Baby Bok Choy with Sesame-Soy Glaze

First, the recipe for the chicken: I got it from a friend who now lives in Peru.

Chicken with Lime Juice and Coca-Cola (thanks, Laura!)
-4 medium boned, skinless chicken breasts
-5 cloves garlic, minced
-Juice of 5 limes
-1 can Coca Cola
-Salt and pepper to taste
-Olive oil to coat bottom of skillet

Heat olive oil and place chicken breasts in skillet. Brown on medium heat turning as needed. As soon as chicken is brown add garlic and saute 1 minute. Pour Coca Cola and lime juice over chicken and simmer uncovered on low heat, approximately 20 minutes. Serve over rice along with your favorite vegetable.


It was so easy, and so good! My only regret is that I did not brown the chicken enough. I thought I had, but really it just had kind of a temporary dark glaze from the oil. It looked a little pasty when all was said and done. Next time I'll give the breasts several minutes on each side.

And now, the baby bok choy! This recipe was a lot of fun: the oil spatters quite a bit though, so watch your glasses and make sure the fan is on. Oh, and use your best judgment with whether you really want to go adding garlic to a pan as hot as this one gets. I found myself holding the pan off of heat for at least a minute, throwing the garlic in after the green onions (scallions) so that the moisture from the onions could act as a buffer to keep the garlic from burning.

This recipe is from Cooks Illustrated and was originally published on May 1st, 2001.

Sesame-Soy-Glazed Baby Bok Choy

Serves 4 as a side dish.
"This recipe works best with baby bok choy weighing no more than 4 ounces each. If your market sells larger baby bok choy, remove a layer or two of the large outer leaves."
-2 tablespoons soy sauce
-2 tablespoons chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
-1 tablespoon rice vinegar
-2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
-1 teaspoon granulated sugar
-3 tablespoons peanut oil
-4 baby bok choy (about 4 ounces each), each head halved lengthwise
-3 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
-1 inch piece fresh ginger , minced (about 1 tablespoon)
-2 medium scallions , sliced thin
-1 tablespoon sesame seeds , toasted in a small dry skillet over medium heat until lightly browned and fragrant, about 4 minutes

1. Combine soy sauce, stock, vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar in small bowl.

2. Heat large nonstick skillet over high heat until hot, about 2 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil, swirl to coat pan bottom. Place bok choy in skillet, cut-side down, in single layer. Cook, without moving, until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Turn bok choy and cook until lightly browned on second side, about 1 minute longer; transfer to large, warm platter.

3. Add garlic, ginger, and scallions to now-empty pan and drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon peanut oil. Cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 20 seconds. Add soy sauce mixture and simmer until reduced and thickened, about 20 seconds. Return bok choy to pan and cook, turning once, until glazed with sauce, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve immediately.

I love baby bok choy! Love it! It's so cute and wrinkly, and invidual-serving-size-ready!

It looks kind of burned, but I think it has to in order to get that caramelized flavor.

And here's how everything came together! I didn't write any instructions for the red quinoa because it basically made itself. I gave it a quick rinse (turns out that the kind I buy in bulk is pre-rinsed to get rid of quinoa's naturally bitter coating) and threw it in the rice cooker with 1 part quinoa to 2 parts chicken broth. So easy!

Note: I've tagged this recipe as "gluten-free" because the main dish is. The baby bok choy, however, contains soy sauce, which has wheat. So, the menu is not gluten-free. But it could be with a few adjustments.

Pho, Interrupted

Disclaimer: This isn't really pho. I'm sure a closer title would be "Soup which superficially resembles pho, but whose broth was concocted in an inauthentic manner." But whatever it is, I love it almost as much as I love the bowl I get down the street at Pho Gia! So, I just wanted to get that off my chest: this broth has no beef knuckles or anything of the kind. It's just an approximation.

Aaaaanyway, I bought a knob of fresh turmeric the other day (grown organically in Hawaii! Who knew?) and was itching to use it in something. I don't think I've ever seen turmeric in its non-yellow-powder form before! Looked like ginger except for the whole orange factor. This picture doesn't really do it justice.

I've made my Splendid Table-inspired pho-proximation several times. The broth contains a bunch of broiled ginger. I figured I would use a little less ginger than usual, and add in some turmeric. The turmeric gave the broth a beautiful color!

The bad news: All of my pictures are showing up tiny, even though I select "Large"! What gives??

Here's the recipe:

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup With Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho)

From The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper

Cheater's Asian Broth (this name comes from the cookbook! not me)

-1 medium onion, thin sliced

-4 large garlic cloves, thin sliced

-One 2- to 3-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thin sliced

-6 whole cloves

-1 whole star anise, bruised; or 1/2 teaspoon anise seeds

-Fresh-ground black pepper

-Four 14-ounce cans chicken broth

-2 tablespoons sugar

-2 teaspoons Asian fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc nam)

Soup

-6 to 8 ounces linguine-style rice noodles

-6 to 8 ounces top round steak (chicken breast can be substituted), sliced extremely thin

Table Salad

-10 sprigs fresh coriander (okay, where I come from this is cilantro, and the Splendid Table isn't British so I'm not sure who they're trying to impress...)

-6 to 8 sprigs Thai or other fresh basil

-2 serrano chiles or jalape*os, thin sliced

-Generous handful bean sprouts

-1 large lime, cut into wedges

Sauces (I've never used these and haven't particularly missed them)

Hoisin sauce

Hot sauce

1. Position an oven rack 4 to 6 inches from the broiler, and preheat. Double a very large piece of heavy foil. Scatter the onion, garlic, ginger, cloves, anise, and 5 grinds of pepper on the foil.

Broil for 5 minutes, turning the pieces once. You want the onion to have some toasted edges, and the spices should be fragrant. Scrape everything into a 6-quart pot. Be sure to get all the anise seed if that's what you used.

2. Add the broth, sugar, and fish sauce, and bring to a gentle bubble. Cover tightly, and simmer for 20 minutes. [Carrina's note: stop right here! Every single time I make this broth, I end up simmering for closer to 40 minutes, because I forget to start soaking the rice noodles until the broth is done. Consequently, the broth always ends up being a little too, ahem, pungent. 20 minutes really is plenty of time for this method. Just sayin'. Now could you please tell my future self this, so she remembers the next time she makes this broth?]

3. Meanwhile, put the rice noodles in a large bowl, and cover them with very hot tap water [Carrina's note: hot tap water just did not cut it when I made this at my mom's house. We ended up just having to boil water at the last minute. I've started using almost-boiling water from a teapot instead, and it works much better. And yes, cover it!]. Soak the noodles for 10 to 15 minutes, or until they are tender but with a little more firmness than you want. Stir a few times. When they are ready, drain and rinse well with cold water. Divide the noodles between two large soup bowls.

4. While the broth is simmering and the noodles are soaking, arrange the table salad on a platter and set out the sauces.

[Carrina's note: also slice the meat at this point, if you have time! I used top round steak that had been frozen solid for a month, then thawed in the fridge for five minutes. It was like I was shaving the meat! I used my super-sharp, fairly new chef's knife, or this method probably wouldn't have worked.]

5. To serve, divide the beef between the soup bowls. Ladle the bubbling broth into the bowls [check out the beautiful yellow color the turmeric gave to the onions!]

Top each serving with selections from the table salad.