Well, if you're going to try and learn Houdini, eventually you've got to simulate an explosion.
Here is my attempt at doing just that:
I rendered it with Mantra PBR and I really like the look of it but the render times are killing me. Some of the frames took around 7 hours to render! Now, I'm still new to Houdini so I've got a lot to learn when it comes to render settings. That being said, I'm sure there is a way to reduce the render time.
For the most part, this is a default Houdini explosion. I played with some of the turbulence and density settings on the explosion but mainly focused my time on the shading of the explosion.
Most of the changes were made on the ramp for the fuel and smoke.