Next month, my fellow Craftsy Review bloggers and I will be covering Vietnamese Classics: Pho, Noodles & Beyond. We thought in the time between now and then, we’d each review a recipe or two from the class.

This is really exciting for me as my favorite restaurant is a Vietnamese restaurant. I hope I can learn to make a few of my favorites.  Here are the recipes I tried, and Marsha and Naomi will be in the next couple of weeks. I’m making Goi Cuon or Rice Paper Rolls, and Pho Bo (Traditional Beef Pho). Yum! One of my standard orders at the restaurant is for Salad Rolls, so the Rice Paper Rolls are perfect for me.

First up was a shopping trip. Andrea gives you all the ingredients and supplies you’ll need to make these recipes. Oh darn. I had to go buy more fun kitchen supplies. I think kitchen utensils are the cooking equivalent of a sewing stash!

I needed a skimmer for making my broth. Unfortunately, I bought a skimmer that looks like this:

It didn’t do a thing. Then watching the video again, Andrea is using a skimmer that looks like this:

This is a fine mesh skimmer and it actually skims. I don’t have that exact one, but I do have a fine mesh skimmer that worked a lot better than the one I just bought.

Something I had to search for were the spices. I could not find them at my local grocery store. However, I did find them at a local Bistro. They have a whole wall of spices.

They had everything I needed.

As far as the recipes go, I’ve made Rice Paper Rolls before. I really love some of the tips for making them more presentable that Andrea shares. Edible is one thing, pretty and appetizing is taking it to a new level.

For both of the recipes I’m trying, I’m using screen shots from Andrea’s Craftsy class and then comparing them to my makes.

Here is one of Andrea’s Rice Paper Rolls:

And here are mine:

I had a little more trouble with my second roll (top in the photo) than my first one. This is definitely a skill one would need to practice. My husband had no complaints though. He enjoyed them and said the recipe is a keeper.

I can’t have seafood, so I left out the shrimp and added some seasoned chicken, but everything else that’s yummy is included. They were a wonderful lunch.

Next up is some yummy Pho. Again, I’ll start with Andrea’s beautiful Pho Bo. Hmm. Maybe I need new Pho bowls…

I decided I didn’t need new bowls. I’m using the bowls I have now.

Here is my Pho stock simmering away. My house smelled wonderful while it was simmering.

I’ll skim it again when I’m straining it. There are too many flavorful goodies floating on the top too. I want them in there adding flavor.

Just before I show you the finished Pho Bo, I want to show you my assembled bowls. My son decided he wanted a small bowl, so he got a small one.

Here they are waiting for the broth to be added.

In this next photo the broth has been added to the small bowl. Can you see the difference in the color of the meat and how the hot broth cooks the meat? That was fun to see. It happens right away too.

Here’s the second bowl all ready. I’ll warn you right here; there’s no photo of all three bowls. Once that third bowl was ready, we were all ready to eat. In fact, my hubby started eating right at the counter! We had to call him over to the table to join us.

Check out Marsha’s post next week on Flying by the Seam of my Pants for her recipes makes from this same class.

 Happy creating!