Saturday, April 23, 2011

Gazpacho

 

Last weekend I made my first ever batch of Gazpacho. I had never heard of it until a luncheon I attended for work in February. It was called "empty bowls", supported the local food bank and many vendors and restaurants in the area served soup according to their specialty. It was pretty amazing and one of my favorites was this soup called gazpacho that is served cold! It seemed pretty weird, but was surprisingly good. It may be a southern thing? It originated through Spain and Latin America. 

Anyway, it's an amazingly fresh summer meal I highly recommend giving it a try with some fresh ingredients this summer :) One of my favorite things about this recipe is that you don't need to use your oven or stove at all - so no heating up the home on a hot day! You just dice everything up and blend half of it - so easy! It's been in the 80's - 90's here so I've definitely been in the mood for fresh summer meals and this one hit the spot. I got this particular recipe from The Pioneer Woman's Blog - have you checked out her blog or recipes? Oh my gosh it will make your mouth water. She makes amazing food.

Photos are up first, the ingredients list and full directions are below...

1/2 red onion, diced, and two minced garlic cloves added to the blender



Diced cucumber (ok... I may have minced it. Maybe this is why it took me so long to dice all of these veggies!)



Diced tomatoes. Does this make you ready for summer or what?!



Diced zucchini



2 stalks celery - pre-dicing



1/2 of all veggies (it makes for a FULL blender I may add)



Here are my reserved non-blended veggies (and yes, my thumb)



  Add the liquids and seasonings to the blender



Blend



Pour into large bowl and stir in the non-blended veggies. This gives it a great texture. Taste check to see if the amount of salt, hot sauce and pepper are to your likings.



Chill in the fridge for at least a few hours before serving.



Add remaining veggies as garnish (apparently the garnish is enough to serve 8 and I divided all of the garnish between our two bowls, creating an EXCESS of garnish. I believe that's why I didn't like it as much the first night. The other meals we ate it without garnish, I loved it so I think next time I'll just use a little sprinkling of the pretty garnish so most of the veggies are marinated). After sitting overnight, I LOVED it though and will be making many more batches for our long summer! :)

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red onion, diced
1 large cucumber, diced
5 roma tomatoes, diced
1 zucchini, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 dash salt to taste
1/4 gallon (1 quart) tomato juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons white sugar
6 dashes hot sauce
1 dash black pepper to taste

Directions:
In a food processor or blender, combine the garlic with half of the red onion, half the cucumber, half the tomatoes, half the zucchini, half the celery, half the tomato juice, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sugar, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Pulse until all ingredients are blended well; mixture will be nicely speckled.

Pour into a large bowl and add the rest of the tomato juice, half of the remaining onion, cucumber, tomato, zucchini, and celery (reserve the rest of the vegetables for garnish - or if you don't care about garnish, throw them all in :))

Stir mixture together and check seasonings, adding salt if needed. Chill soup for at least a couple of hours; soup should be served very cold.

Remove from fridge, stir and check seasonings. Serve with garnished vegetables if desired. Eat the chilled soup out on your patio on a warm day and enjoy!


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