Sunday, August 23, 2009

Real Men Make Gazpacho

The steamy hot weather lately has been enough to wilt even this hearty flower, so light, cool food has been the name of the game. My Handsome Guy and I have made gazpacho three times within a week, inspired by the gorgeous tomatoes at local farmstands – even the “ugly” ones are pretty! Handsome has become the expert, and we’ve narrowed it down to a pretty good recipe, I think. ALL raw, great way to get your veggies! Really traditional gazpacho has bread in it, but we 86ed that and some of the fussier steps like seeding the cukes and straining out the chunks. The blender does a pretty good job with both. Here’s the recipe we used tonight:

4 huge tomatoes – squeeze out the seeds over a strainer with a bowl underneath, to save the juice

2 big cucumbers (American or English – we don’t discriminate)

½ to ¾ of a large red onion, depending on how much you like

1 green bell pepper

1 big clove of garlic, diced

3 tablespoons fresh cilantro

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp cumin

¼ cup vinegar (red wine this time, but we tried apple cider the other day and that was great, too)

¼ cup olive oil

Chop everything up, combine in a bowl, give it a good stir, and if you can, let it hang out for an hour or so. It helps if you dance around the kitchen to the Gypsy Kings while you do the dishes, we’ve found. Then blend it all up – you’ll probably need to do it in two shifts. Add half a cup of water, if you need to to get the blender going, but we’ve found the veggies to be plenty juicy, and haven’t added much water. Fancy recipes call for you to strain out the solids at this point, but we aren’t afraid of a little fiber. (Please, no gas-pacho jokes.) Let it chill for a few hours in the fridge (or not). It’ll be even better for lunch tomorrow! We garnished with some extra veggies and avocado.

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