The heat of summer is the perfect time to think about soup. Not hot soup, but cold. And when I think about cold soup, gazpacho quickly comes to mind. It has a complexity of flavors, but it’s so simple to prepare, it’s almost child’s play.
I remember falling in love with it the first time I tried it in high school. Summer tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers – it’s the ultimate summer standby that works in a bowl as well as a cup.
Gazpacho is the perfect lunch for summer, both filling and cooling during the heat of the day, or as a quick and cooling dinner at night. Either way – as a soup or a drink – you have a fresh-from-the-garden mixture that you can make a day ahead and forget about it until it’s time to serve.
Really, deciding on its texture is perhaps the hardest part of making gazpacho. If you like it chunky, pulse the ingredients in a food processor. If you like it smooth, a blender works just fine.
Many recipes call for using tomato juice instead of fresh tomatoes. But as a summer soup, why use juice from a can? Tomatoes are plentiful this time of year – so abundant you’ll soon be gifting neighbors with baskets full of tomatoes before too terribly long. Instead, why not whip up a batch of gazpacho and gift them with a jar or two and a loaf of crusty bread? Gazpacho and good bread are the ubiquitous vegetarian meal – and we can all benefit going meatless once a week.