From Erik's Kitchen: Gazpacho

All right, I think most of the people I work with have gone to bed (not that many of them read this anyway), so it's safe to post this.

When I was little, I hated tomatoes.  I would pick them out of salads, I'd pick large ones off of pizzas, and I was always leery of homemade pasta sauces.  I wouldn't eat tomato soup, no matter how sick I got.  I wised up over time, and now I've essentially cut ketchup out of my diet completely with the thinking of "if I want something that tastes "tomatoey," I'll just put on a tomato.

Plus, they work as a great base for sauces and soups.

Like gazpacho.

So tomorrow my team at work is doing a potluck because we're all sticking around until 7:00.  It's the last day of the month, and that means that a) the books need to balance, and b) I'm probably doing another really short blog post again.

Normally I like to take in meaty dishes or interesting sides, but I've been told that a bunch of people on my team are also taking part in our office "Biggest Loser" challenge, which I fully support because I know for a fact I've added a few pounds just from having to sit in a desk all day, and I've been meaning for quite some time to regularly exercise and get in better shape.

So I decided to make gazpacho, which is both a lot more fun and a lot more complex than I expected.  Here's the recipe I used (I did a double batch), with the few changes I had to make.

Oh, and for the record, this stuff tastes great.

Your ingredients are:

One and a half pounds of vine-ripened tomatoes.  These will be peeled (more below), seeded, and chopped.

Tomato juice (as back-up, see below)

One cup of cucumber peeled, seeded, and chopped.  For me, this was one long cucumber.

One half cup chopped red bell pepper

A slight interjection.  I don't normally do anything with bell pepper because my father has always been extremely allergic as far back as I can remember.  It's one of the few foods I get nervous about because I've seen what it does to him in small doses, and I'm worried that one day an allergic reaction to it might spring up in me.  It's silly, I know.

One half cup chopped red onion

One small jalapeno, seeded and minced

One medium garlic clove, minced

One fourth cup extra-virgin olive oil (honestly, I think this is optional, since the gazpacho tasted great before I added that after almost forgetting to include it)

One lime, juiced

Two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

Two teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

One half teaspoon toasted, ground cumin (I didn't have time to toast mine, so I just used regular cumin)

One teaspoon kosher salt (the only kind of salt I use anymore unless I'm salting pretzels)

One fourth teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Two tablespoons of basil leaves, chiffonade (long ribbons)

Okay, here's how you peel a tomato.  Take a small knife, cut out the stemmy bit at the "top" of the tomato so it has a cone shaped hole in it.  Cut a thin "X" on the bottom, just barely cutting into the skin with the tip of your knife.  Let the cut be about an inch long for each bar of the "X."  Drop the tomatoes, three at a time, into a pot of boiling water for fifteen seconds, remove, and put in a bowl of water and ice to stop it from cooking further.  When cool, take a small knife and simply peel back the skin from the "X," it should come off easily.

When you seed them, dump the insides into a sieve over a bowl so the liquid can drain out.  Add tomato juice to that liquid until you have a cup of juice.

Add everything except the basil into a large bowl, stir, and then take one and a half cups of the mixture and puree in a blender for fifteen to twenty seconds to make it creamy and thick.  Pour that back into the mixture and you have soup!

Chill for several hours (covered, the smells will spread to other things that absorb odors in the fridge like butter).

Sprinkle the basil on top when you serve.

And like I said, it is delicious.  Thank you, Mr. Brown, for another great recipe.  Maybe someday I'll be smart enough to grind my own spices so I can roast them first.