(Due to Blogger maintenance, the photos for this post may not appear at first. Hopefully they will be back later!)
As I planned our menu for the week, I decided that we were in desperate need of a light, vegetarian meal. Light in calories, but also light in how it sits in the stomach - hot weather cries out for light foods. Not only was this meal meet both of those requirements, it also did not heat up the kitchen - another plus for the dog days of summer.
Half the veggies go into the food processor to be pureed. Gazpacho. Or, as we call it, Gasburpo. Ahem.
When I think of gazpacho, I think of a tomato base. Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia says that the ingredients that actually make it gazpacho are bread, garlic, olive oil, salt and vinegar. I like the tomato version - it's a light and flavorful base, but I'd love to try other versions too.
This recipe is adapted from Jane Brody's Good Food Book. Her recipe calls for onion, I prefer scallions which don't have such a harsh bite. I leave out the pimento and I tend to add more chopped veggies than her recipe calls for.
The other half(I usually add more - I like to bite into lots of veggies)
are reserved for the soup.
Tonight's batch of gazpacho was a near disaster. I decided that it needed more hot sauce - this time it was Frank's, not Tabasco - and as I went to shake in a few drops more, a large amount plopped right out of the bottle into my bowl. I had not just flipped the top, I had taken the top off altogether. I was sure it was ruined. However, further inspection revealed that it was not only not ruined, but not even close to unbearably hot. In fact, had I stuck with mere drops instead of tablespoons full, we may not have noticed the hot sauce at all. So, I can't tell you how much Frank's actually went into this soup, only that it was probably at least 2 tablespoons and it worked.
We served the gazpacho with fresh corn from a local farmer and fresh rosemary olive oil bread toasted with olive oil and Pecorino Romano. Yummy. The boys seemed to enjoy it too - their plates and bowls were clean.
That looks scrumptious. I've never actually had gazpacho...something about cold soup really makes me cringe. But I'm getting close to wanting to try it the hotter it gets.
ReplyDeleteMust have been something in the air last night that screamed "cook vegetarian". :-) I heard those same voices.
I definitely prefer warm soups, but not this time of year! Two exceptions are gazpacho and vichyssoise. Only problem with vichyssoise is that to make it truly excellent, I think you really need to use cream. No skimping or it's just not even close. Gazpacho can be a bit bland and boring, so hot sauces (or other sources of heat) are great for adding some zing.
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