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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Gazpacho!

Gazpacho is a cold Spanish tomato-based raw vegetable soup, originating in the southern region of Andalucía. Gazpacho most nearly resembles a sort of chunky liquid salad, with lots of fresh, uncooked vegetables suspended in a broth of puréed tomatoes or tomato juice. There are many variations, but this one is REALLY good, and is my favorite. In the summer when all of the vegetables are at their finest, this simple, modern soup is full of refreshing good flavor.

This is one of my favorite things to eat in the summer, and my husband says he can eat it everyday, so I made a big batch today.
The Recipe....
3 large tomatoes
1 cucumber (peeled)
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup green onion
4 cups tomato juice
2 avocados
5 TBLS red wine vinegar
4 TBLS olive oil
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
cilantro lemon juice

Chop everything up and put in a big bowl. Chill. Measurements aren't that important, I always improvise and add a little more of what I like, etc.
I got this recipe from my mother-in-law and as you can see from the picture, I've used it alot. It was originally written on pink bunny paper.

Garden grown tomatoes are the best, but any fresh tomatoes are fine. I used 4 or 5 medium sized tomatoes in this batch.

I love Persian cucumbers. They are very crisp and do not have seeds. They are much smaller than traditional cukes, so I use at least two. I used 3 for this batch.

Celery. I just estimated1 cup.

Again, for the green onions I just estimated the amount.
For the tomato juice, I used R.W. Knudsen Very Veggie - Spicy. In the past I have used V8, V8 Spicy, and just plain tomato juice. I prefer the spicy or else the soup tends to come out a bit bland. The soup doesn't taste spicy to me because all of the other ingredients mellow the juice out, but it gives it more flavor. No measuring needed since the bottle is 4 cups, how convenient!

I love avocados!

Adding the vinegar and oil.

Salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

And lastly cilantro. Of course this is optional, but I love it, so I add alot.

Mix it all up.

And chill, so all the flavors can mingle. Yum!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yum! Can I come for dinner at your house?

Sherry Sikstrom said...

What time is supper ? I'm on my way!(lol) looks yummy ,I might have to make some soon

Kathleen Coy said...

Oh yum! This looks like a great recipe for gazpacho, I'll be trying it soon. :-)

Paint Girl said...

That does look very good! Thanks for sharing the recipe!!

Desert Rose said...

Ah...my loving husband's favorite!!!

Hot Rocks said...

That sounds wonderful! What a great way to get your veggies! Will have to give this a try.

storybeader said...

that's a lot of cutting! Looks delicious - pretty too!

The Silver Age Sara said...

Yummy and the photos were so beautiful. I think I'm headed your way for dinner.

Anonymous said...

How timely. I need to go to a party tonight, and googled the ingredients i already have and your perfect sounding recipe came up! Sounds like heaven. Running out for juice and avocados right now. Thanks. You're making me very popular.

gtyyup said...

This sounds wonderful...never had it before. I'm going to wait for my garden tomatoes to ripen before I make it.

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