As soon as the weather gets warmer, my body craves veggies & fruit like you wouldn't believe. I am definitely, and always have been, a seasonal eater. When its hot I prefer the majority of my meals to be of a chilled variety and that usually means heavily vegetable based. My favorite of these meals has always been a cold bowl of fresh gazpacho.
I recently celebrated Lammas, an old festival day celebrating the first harvest of the year. I was debating on what to make for a special dinner and then Gazpacho popped in my head. I had a ton of cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes from my parents garden to use up and as a city dweller, that is about as close to a first harvest as I'm going to be able to do. I accompanied my meal with a whole grain zucchini corn bread. Since today is my MFM post for vegans I'll post that recipe later....In the meantime, make up a batch of this easy to make and delicious chilled soup. Serve it up with some good crusty bread and I guarantee you'll be hooked. Gazpacho also works great for all of you out there that are raw food fanatics as well, since it involves zero cooking. All you need to make it is a good knife or a food processor.
You'll need:
4 large ripe tomatoes
3 medium cucumbers, peeled
1 red onion
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 small can tomato juice
2 red bell peppers
Cut the vegetables into large chunks. Place all the ingredients in your food processor or blender and pulse until is the same consistency as a chunky salsa. Chill in the refrigerator for one day to let the flavors marinate before serving.
Note: this is a good recipe to make at least one day in advance as it tastes so much better once the flavors have had a chance to marinate together for a bit.
