Gazpacho

Last night I sat out on the porch with my husband mulling over whether or not to cook dinner. Guilt over the 1/2 loaf of stale bread from the farmer's market this past Saturday led me to trying my hand at a batch of gazpacho. I did some internet searching and couldn't find quite the recipe I had developing in my head. I called my mom and explained that I wasn't leaving the house for any additional ingredients and gave her the list of what I had. I mostly took her advice, except I added onion when she said not to. I'll probably regret that when I try the leftovers today and the onion will have become more potent!

First, I sliced about 4 or 5 thick slices from the middle of the stale 1/2 loaf. I roughly chopped those into large hunks and put them in a bowl with about 1/2C water, 1-2T olive oil, and 1 diced clove of garlic. I set that aside to let the bread soak up the liquid and thinking that maybe the liquid would also take the edge off the raw garlic.

Meanwhile, I peeled 3 tomatoes and quartered them. I peeled and roughly chopped 1 and 1/2 cucumbers. I added about 2T chopped red onion, counter to my mom's advice. My husband brought in 2 small jalapenos from the garden which I deseeded and chopped. I tossed those vegetables into the food processor with 1T sherry vinegar, 1T olive oil, and black pepper. (You could add more raw garlic at this point.)

Next, I added the bread to the vegetable mix in the food processor. I mixed until there were no longer large chunks of bread. The result was quite tasty and I didn't even have to adjust any seasonings. I let it sit in the refrigerator while the swiss chard and ricotta pie (recipe from July 10th) finished baking. The two were a good dinner combination!