eat make read

Growing up picky, I usually turned up my nose at anything that included vegetables, let alone a whole soup made of them, but recently I’ve been intrigued by gazpacho. I picked up the proper vegetables at the market, all in glorious form, and chopped away while watching one of my favorite shows, CBS Sunday Morning. I soon found out that chopping into tiny pieces was for the birds, so I roughly chopped everything and then threw it in the food processor. I tossed everything into a big jar, added some water, a little oil and let it be.

My gazpacho came in perfect use last night after I forgot we’d signed up for a cheese class at Murray’s. Now I love cheese, but after tasting 7 cheeses, I almost needed to be rolled out of class, and I certainly needed some vegetables in my belly. So we came home, poured ourselves some gazpacho and it did just the trick. It’s a great blend of tomato, garlic, peppers and cucumbers, with none of them standing out, but all melding together to create a nice balance of refreshing goodness. And lucky for us, we’ve got leftovers.

Gazpacho
I roughly followed this recipe, cut in half

1 garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large tomatoes, seeded
1 green bell pepper, seeded
1 hot pepper, seeded
1/2 red onion
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded
1 cup cold water
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Mash garlic and salt in mortar with pestle until paste forms. Transfer to large bowl. Finely chop tomatoes, peppers, onion and cucumber and add to bowl. Add 2 cups cold water and 1 tablespoons oil. Stir in chopped cilantro. Season with pepper. Cover soup and refrigerate until cold, about 3 hours.