Gazpacho

The first thing I want to plant when I have an actual garden of my own will be tomatoes. I can barely contain my excitement and the thought of reaching to pick tomatoes right of the vine in my backyard, almost brings me to tears.

I think I can manage to grow the rest of the ingredients for Gazpacho in my garden too. Won’t that be incredible?

Soup is one of my favorite things to eat. We eat soup several times a week in our family. Gazpacho is absolutely divine during the hot, summer months. It’s cold and refreshing, exactly what everyone is craving this time of year.  Not only is it cold and soothing, but it also has so much crunchiness and freshness. All the vegetables are fresh, nothing is cooked, so you can imagine how bright it is. 

Ingredients:

5 medium tomatoes, peeled and seeded, half coarsely chopped and half minced

1/2 of an English cucumber, seeded, half coarsely chopped and half minced

1 small bell pepper, seeded half coarsely chopped and half minced

1 small celery stalk, half coarsely chopped and half minced

1 slice hearty bread

1 small jalapeño, minced

1 small shallot, minced

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 cups tomato juice

salt, pepper

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more to garnish

1/2 Tablespoon sherry vinegar, plus more to garnish

fresh herbs, to garnish (parsley, green onions, basil, etc.)

Instructions:

Cut an X on the top and bottom of the tomatoes. Submerge the tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Plunge the tomatoes into an ice bath and then peel the skin off the tomatoes. Remove the seeds from the tomatoes. Coarsely chop half of the tomatoes and mince the second hand of the tomatoes.

Coarsely chop half of the cucumber (which would be 1/4 of the whole English cucumber, scraping out the seeds from the cucumber too), bell pepper and celery stalk. Mince the second half of the cucumber, bell pepper and celery stalk. Mince the jalapeño and shallot and crush the garlic clove.

If you like spicy food, you might want to add more hot peppers and different varieties of hot peppers to this soup. It depends on your taste buds. Also, you can add the seeds to the soup to add more spiciness to it. Sergi and I don’t like our food too spicy, so I leave it on the mild side. Place the coarsely chopped vegetables and the slice of bread, torn into pieces into a food processor and pulse until it’s completely pureed. The bread is completely optional. Your soup will be smoother without the bread. The bread gives the soup creaminess.

Add the olive oil and the sherry vinegar and pulse to combine again. Pour the mixture into a large bowl. Add the minced vegetables, the crushed garlic clove, tomato juice and season to taste with salt and pepper and more olive oil and sherry vinegar, if needed.

Instead of mincing all the vegetables, you can pulse them in the food processor until they are coarsely chopped and puree the second half. This method is much faster. I prefer to mince the vegetables by hand, because I’m somewhat OCD about having everything chopped nicely and neatly and I actually really enjoy chopping. Since I have so much practice, it doesn’t take me long at all.

Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or overnight. Remove the crushed garlic clove before serving. Garnish with fresh herbs, more minced vegetables and olive oil and/or sherry vinegar.