gazpacho recipe
Another entry for the increasingly sparse domesticity tab!
As summer approached this year, I've been trying out and making up recipes for cold soups. I tend to have some form of soup for lunch every day at work, and for a long while, I fell into the easy-enough rut of making black bean soup, but that needs to be reheated. I've dabbled in purees, but they are easy to get tired of. But now that all the right vegetables are in season, gazpacho has become the default.
Of course, gazpacho in itself is just a cold cucumber and tomato soup, which is really just a lot of water. For this to be a daily staple, it needs some heartier ingredients, so my version adds beans for actual calories and protein. Here goes!
4-5 medium sized tomatoes
2-3 cucumbers
2-4 stalks of celery
1/2 red onion
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 cup tomato juice (I use low-sodium V8)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T balsamic vinegar
1-3 cloves garlic
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t black pepper
Tabasco
1-3 cups prepared beans, such as cannelini or chickpeas
Optionally time-consuming but worthwhile step: Blanch the tomatoes for easy skin removal: score each tomato and drop it in boiling water for 15 seconds, then move to a cold/ice water bath to cool. Remove skins, and over a strainer so as to collect any juices (I tend to get 1 cup here), tear apart the tomatoes to remove the seeds/center, then dice the tomatoes. Otherwise, just toss the tomatoes into a blender or food processor and blend to whatever consistency you want, but now you have the seeds and skins in there too. Pour into a large bowl.
Peel the cucumbers, slice in half and remove the seeds, then dice them. Dice the rest of the vegetables. I try to keep everything the same size, aside from the celery and onion, which I dice a bit smaller. Add the diced veggies to the bowl.
Add the liquids and powdered spices and stir. You may find the extra tomato juice is or isn't necessary, depending on how you prepared the tomatoes or how chunky you like your soup.
Toss the garlic directly into the food processor - let the machine do the work of chopping it up. Put half of the vegetable mixture into the processor and blend to desired consistency. I have a smaller processor, so I do this step twice in 2-cup batches. You can process more or less of the vegetables, depending on how you want the end product to be.
Return everything to the one large bowl; add several dashes of Tabasco and the beans, and stir. Cover bowl and refrigerate at least 2 hours to overnight. Makes at least six servings.
As summer approached this year, I've been trying out and making up recipes for cold soups. I tend to have some form of soup for lunch every day at work, and for a long while, I fell into the easy-enough rut of making black bean soup, but that needs to be reheated. I've dabbled in purees, but they are easy to get tired of. But now that all the right vegetables are in season, gazpacho has become the default.
Of course, gazpacho in itself is just a cold cucumber and tomato soup, which is really just a lot of water. For this to be a daily staple, it needs some heartier ingredients, so my version adds beans for actual calories and protein. Here goes!
4-5 medium sized tomatoes
2-3 cucumbers
2-4 stalks of celery
1/2 red onion
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 cup tomato juice (I use low-sodium V8)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T balsamic vinegar
1-3 cloves garlic
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t black pepper
Tabasco
1-3 cups prepared beans, such as cannelini or chickpeas
Optionally time-consuming but worthwhile step: Blanch the tomatoes for easy skin removal: score each tomato and drop it in boiling water for 15 seconds, then move to a cold/ice water bath to cool. Remove skins, and over a strainer so as to collect any juices (I tend to get 1 cup here), tear apart the tomatoes to remove the seeds/center, then dice the tomatoes. Otherwise, just toss the tomatoes into a blender or food processor and blend to whatever consistency you want, but now you have the seeds and skins in there too. Pour into a large bowl.
Peel the cucumbers, slice in half and remove the seeds, then dice them. Dice the rest of the vegetables. I try to keep everything the same size, aside from the celery and onion, which I dice a bit smaller. Add the diced veggies to the bowl.
Add the liquids and powdered spices and stir. You may find the extra tomato juice is or isn't necessary, depending on how you prepared the tomatoes or how chunky you like your soup.
Toss the garlic directly into the food processor - let the machine do the work of chopping it up. Put half of the vegetable mixture into the processor and blend to desired consistency. I have a smaller processor, so I do this step twice in 2-cup batches. You can process more or less of the vegetables, depending on how you want the end product to be.
Return everything to the one large bowl; add several dashes of Tabasco and the beans, and stir. Cover bowl and refrigerate at least 2 hours to overnight. Makes at least six servings.