Our friend Farmer Steven shared some farm-fresh produce, including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and jalapeños, from the CSA box last week with The Culinary Center of Kansas City’s Elle T. (also known around these parts as the ‘Goddess of Good Eats’). Elle T immediately knew how she was going to put it to good use – Gazpacho!Â
Gazpacho, a cold soup of Spanish origin, offers a simple, flavorful way to make the most of the season’s produce. Armed with a cookbook called ‘Californian Markets’ that she found in the stacks of vintage and treasured cookbooks on sale in our Kitchen Shop, she made several of her own tweaks to the recipe and came up with a delicious, tasty soup.
Try her version of Gazpacho at home:
Gazpacho
- 2 lbs large, ripe tomatoes
- 1 small cucumber, peeled and chopped
- 1/2 green pepper, deseeded and chopped
- 1/2 red pepper, deseeded and chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 jalapeños, seeds removed
- splash of hot sauce
- 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
Put tomatoes in a bowl and cover with boiling water. After 2-3 minutes, slip off the skins and cut tomatoes in half. Combine the tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, garlic, jalapeños and hot sauce into a blender or food processor on high speed until the mixture is smooth, adding the olive oil and red wine vinegar while blending. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Chill the soup in the refrigerator for at least 1-2 hours before serving. Garnish with croutons and/or additional chopped cucumber and pepper. Serves 4-6.
Enjoy!
