Sunday, August 29, 2010

Gazpacho

Like many others, I found myself in a state of tomato overload this week, after my garden raiding adventures, gifts from my tomato overloaded neighbors plus a couple of trips to the farmer's market. I use them as much as I can, tomato sandwiches, garnishes on everything and salsa can only go so far, I am almost to the point where I need to start cooking and/or freezing but don't want to do that just yet. I decided to make a batch of Gazpacho!



Gazpacho is a lot of fun, but it does get you some odd looks, "Excuse me waiter... do you know this soup is ice cold?" Really it is quite good; this particular recipe is my favorite. To serve I scraped the inside out of a couple of large tomatoes and froze the empty shells (how cool is that!?) then filled them with the ice cold soup.


Ingredients
2 1/2 Cups of diced up tomatoes (I used several kinds)
1/2 cucumber peeled, seeded and diced
1 red bell pepper diced
2 cloves garlic minced
2 TBS sesame oil *
2 TBS parsley leaves
1 or 2 chili peppers**
1 cup of vegetable juice (you know... V-8)
Juice from one lime
salt and pepper to taste


* I love the flavor of sesame oil it adds a nice smoky depth, if you don’t like it use olive oil in instead


** These are the unnamed chili peppers from my garden, I have no idea what they are, they are smaller than the one jalapeƱo that I grew and have a pretty good kick to them. Here is what they look like if you know please tell me.


Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth add the vegetable juice until you get the consistency that you want. Put it into a pitcher and chill until ice cold (3-4 hours). When it is time to serve pour into the frozen tomato cups and garnish.

8 comments:

  1. I have a hard time with cold soup, but I think I could do this if I had a warm loaf of bread at my side. I need to be adventerous and give it a try! Thanks for sharing Bryan!

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  2. Most gazpacho recipes I see call for bread to be blended in with the soup, and that always strikes me as an odd thing to call for. Your gazpacho sounds great! Serving it in frozen tomato cups is a great idea (and it uses up tomatoes!).

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  3. I love the sesame oil. Can't wait to try that!

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  4. Love the innovation of the tomato bowls! That's total genius!

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  5. I adore your idea of freezing the tomato halves to use as bowls! You are so clever! I'm going to steal that idea!
    And all these lovely tomatoes right now are supplying me with an unending supply of my favorite: tomato sandwiches for lunch.

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  6. I love gazpacho! And the tomato bowls are a novel idea--and a good use for an overabundance (is there such a thing?) of tomatoes. The peppers look like Thai bird chili's but it's hard to tell without a size "reference" or a taste that could send the heat level through the roof.

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  7. Tomato bowls....look at you!
    Chillies look wonderful, aren't they a jalapeno throwback?? has anyone helped you out there?
    I think I am all caught up now...you inspired tonights dinner, you'll read about it soon.... thanks!

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  8. I inspired dinner!?! I am so excited... Which of the crazy recipes? Oh I'll wait, really looking forward to it.

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