Are your tomatoes from those few tomato plants starting to take over your counter tops and refrigerator crispers? Are your neighbors running from the door when you show up with yet another basket of those sweet and juicy globes of goodness? This recipe for traditional gazpacho (the way they do it in Spain) will have you wishing you hadn't given so many of your precious tomatoes away. As heard on a recent episode of The Splendid Table (on Saturday and Sunday mornings on NPR) this is the recipe that originated in Spain where gazpacho was first conceived. I tried this recipe most recently at my Moms house with the freshest golden yellow and ripe red tomatoes of the season along with a few cucs and onions that we had just harvested that day. To me there is nothing better than fresh, sustainably farmed and lovingly harvested produce from the earth that is still a bit dirty.
This will make enough to enjoy over the next few days, or you can freeze some as well. You most likely won't though as this cold soup is so refreshing and healing to the soul.
As my Mom had quite a few tomatoes lying around I ended up using some of the ones that were starting to split a little and a few that were bruised to make a stew first and then seperated the "puree" from the skins to use as liquid for the base of the gazpacho.
3lbs of toms
olive oil to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Again I stewed these down for about half an hour, let them cool and then put them through a food mill to seperate out the juice and the skins. Save the skins and use them in either a red sauce or spread them on toast with a bit of sharp cheese.
2 more pounds of toms, chopped fine
3-4 large cucs chopped
1 large onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic chopped
20 basil leaves chopped
1 green/red pepper chopped
4 slices of thick hearty bread toasted until very crispy
a generous amount of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Into the food processor/blender I added half of the juice from the toms I cooked earlier and half of all the other veggies we chopped. You really can't add too much olive oil so be generous! Take two pieces of the bread and break into small pieces and add to the mix. Puree until smooth and then continue with the second half of the juice and veggies.
This is one of the greatest soups to sip on a hot August afternoon when the last thing you want to do is turn on the stove. Enjoy!