Italian Beef Pho

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A mash up of pho style soup with Italian flavored beef, this Italian Beef Pho is simple, delicious, and perfect for cold nights like this one.

What’s the ark equivalent for snow?  I mean, I can’t say, “I’m building an ark!” when it snows a lot.  Is it a giant sled?  A mega toboggan?  What’s the ark equivalent for snow?  I mean, we have enough snow to warrant an ark like vessel to save us.

I haven’t seen snow like this since before we moved here.  Oh, and this banter pretty much has nothing to do with this recipe.  I just so happen have a TON of time on my hands to write a few posts that have been sitting for a couple of months.

So, snow.  I haven’t seen snow like this since before we moved to Virginia.  It was 1978, I think, and we were still living in Kentucky.  All I remember is that we all had to stay in one room of the house because it was the only one that was heated.  We were on an oil pump, I think, and it had frozen in the middle of the night.  Mom had to put on her winter coat, hat, and gloves to make food for us to eat.

I don’t remember what we did the whole time.  I just have little snippets of memories from the snow.  Like, I remember me, my sister, and Heidi Ho the St. Bernard on our orange sled going down the middle of the road.  I remember it took them about a week to dig us out.  I don’t remember what we ate, but we were never hungry and I don’t have nightmares about it.

This is kind of like that snow.  It’s huge and has been snowing for well over 18 hours now.  The hardest snow is coming down right about now.  We’ve shoveled about 6 times today and twice yesterday.  Hopefully it will stop like they say it will in about 3 hours at 9pm tonight and there won’t be a ton of snow to shovel in the morning like we woke up to today.

It’s horrible.  I don’t know when I’ll get to the store for food.  I don’t know the hubs will be able to get to work on Monday.  He may be stranded here until they can plow our driveway a little better.

So, I’m sharing this delicious recipe for an Italian beef pho soup that is quite warming, easy to cook.  If you keep lunch meat around, like we do, you can easily whip some up while stranded in your home because of snowzilla.

I’ve always wanted to make pho.  Like, real pho.  But I just don’t have the passion to be able to cook the broth the way it’s supposed to.  Is there a cheat hack I can use to make this soup legit?  I just don’t have the patience to simmer the broth for so long.  Slow cooker method maybe?  I’m begging here!

To be honest, I’ve eaten pho once.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  It was delicious with the beef, the flavorful broth, and then there’s the BASIL!  That Thai basil really is different than the usual basil.  It has a more pungent basil flavor.  I’d eat it again in a heartbeat.  I just haven’t been able to convince the hubs to have some.

Now, I convinced him that this soup was fantastic and he needed to try it.  I mean, just look at that bowl!  The dark brown broth, the delicious beef, that bright green spinach, and finally the earthy porcini mushrooms.  Oh yeah.  Then there’s those amazing Italian herbs and spices cooked into the broth.  It truly is an Italian beef pho.

I did keep with the pho style noodles in this dish.  Oh no.  Those aren’t just regular spaghetti noodles, but you could easily use those if you wanted to.  I mean, it is YOUR bowl of soup.  But, I wanted to keep with the pho atmosphere – the at-pho-sphere? – and use pho noodles in this soup.  I also arranged the bowl like the pho dish with the elements all separated so you can easily pick and choose what to scoop up with your sticks or a spoon.

On a day like today, you really do need a hot bowl of soup like this that can warm you to the bone.  These bone chilling winds, all that snow, and shoveling really does warrant and hearty bowl of soup to reset your body.

I hope y’all stay warm and safe.  We are.