Fresh Tart

Swimming in tomatoes yet? Even if not, make this gorgeous gazpacho anyhow - it's one of my very favorite versions of everyone's favorite summer treat.

Recipe for Gazpacho at Andrew Zimmern's Kitchen Adventures/Food & Wine Magazine.

How do you like your gazpacho? Smooth or chunky? Spicy or sweet? I'm such a gazpacho lover that I like it any way, honestly, and mix it up every time that I make it, depending on my mood and what I have on hand.

This version is a combination of elements from two friends' recipes: Artist Maud Bryt, and co-Minnesota Food Blogger Laurie Jesch-Kulseth, who writes the lovely blog Relishing It. I love the tomato juice that Laurie uses, and so enjoy the hearty dash of paprika and fresh herbs that Maud calls for - together they make a particularly delicious gazpacho, as spicy or smooth as you want it to be, rich and tomato-y. If it's a really hot day, Maud adds more cucumbers. Laurie makes her own garden-fresh tomato juice. It's fun to experiment with adding watermelon, your favorite herbs, or hot chiles.

The key to a really tasty gazpacho is to taste and adjust and make it your own. Recipe for Gazpacho at Dara & Co./Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Hooey it's sizzling hot out there, we've got a real summer now.  Makes me hungry for gazpacho, even though it's hardly tomato season in Minnesota, at least not yet.  But never mind that, since in a pinch, canned tomatoes beautifully anchor a tasty version.  So if a cold-salty-crunchy-tangy gazpacho is your perfect antidote to a hot, steamy June day, I say try the recipe below, with canned whole tomatoes and their juices, and you'll be refreshed.  (This is a particularly lovely version - the garlicky egg and bread crumbs add layers of texture and flavor) -

Gazpacho
Adapted from Mom’s Gazpacho by Elizabeth Shepard, editor in chief of Epicurious
Serves 8

2 cups chopped garden-fresh (or canned) tomatoes
1/2 c. chopped green or yellow pepper
1 c. chopped cucumber, seeds removed
1/2 c. finely chopped red onion
1/3 c. olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 c. beef broth (optional)
1/4 c. red wine vinegar (I added more, I like gazpacho to be rather tart/salty)
1/4 c. finely minced parsley
1 tsp. dried oregano (fresh works nicely as well)
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire
46 oz. tomato juice
freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 hard cooked egg
salt
1/2 c. plain bread crumbs
Tabasco, to taste (for me, that means lots)

Garnish (optional), chopped olives, diced avocado

In a pot or large bowl, combine tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, red onion, olive oil, lemon juice, cold beef broth, red wine vinegar, parsley, oregano, Worcestershire, tomato juice, and pepper to taste.  Stir.  (At this point, I pureed half the mixture and stirred it back in.  Totally optional.)

Place garlic and hard-cooked egg in a small bowl and sprinkle with salt.  Mash together with a fork.  Stir into liquid.  Add bread crumbs and stir so that they dissolve into the liquid.

Taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper, vinegar, and/or Tabasco to taste.  Chill for at least 4 hours and serve.  Garnish with chopped olives and diced avocado if desired.

Elizabeth Shepard’s notes:
• The recipe serves eight, but like homemade tomato sauce, its flavor improves with age – you can store it in the refrigerator and eat it for about a week.
• Why mash the garlic with egg and salt?  To make a garlic-infused paste that adds body and substance to the tomato broth.
• Use kosher salt to bring out the flavors of the vegetables.
• Try to chop the vegetables so that they’re small but not minced or pulverized, and don’t worry if the sizes aren’t uniform.  The pieces should be small enough to chew but big enough to recognize.
• If you prefer a more elegant presentation, emulsify the chilled mixture before serving.  Seasoning is a very personal matter.  I tend to like my gazpacho pungent and sharp, with salt, lemon, and onion flavors lingering on the palate.  If you want a spicier soup, add 2 tsp. of minced jalapeno peppers.  To make vegetarian gazpacho, substitute vegetable broth for beef broth.

If you were waiting for me to post recipes for gazpacho or shrimp saltimbocca, both recipes are up now. My apologies for the lame (let's face it, lazy) delay!

Last night I whipped out my new Weber Poultry Roaster again, man I love that thing. Absolutely no mess or fuss - I opened the grill to baste the bird (chicken) a few times, but that's about it - et voila, a browned, crunchy little lovely, with some nice drippings at the base to turn into a bit of sauce. With sauteed broccoli and sugar snap peas alongside (I've got a thing for snap peas this summer, briefly sauteed in a bit of olive oil or butter until just heated through, so sweet and crunchy), it made a tasty din for the Wild Wednesday crowd.

Tonight, as I mentioned, dinner at Morton's with Zim's and Mack's to celebrate Aaron's birthday. Happy Birthday Aaron! My plan is to bow out early and head over to catch the end of Nathan's baseball game - he's had a little post-season tourney pop up. See you there, I'll be the one in a dress gnawing a side of beef in the stands. Rarrr...

Moderate it: oh Lord, Morton's is the most immoderate place on the planet. I man, I eat meat, grunt.It's all delicious, but even the potatoes are gargantuan - where do they find those things? I don't know what I'm ordering, probably a fishy appetizer of sorts - I'm making beef tenderloin on the grill tomorrow night, so no steak, sniff. I do love their steamed veggies, with just a teeny bit of Bearnaise (The Kill). Hopefully right about when those naughty hash browned potatoes appear, I'll be driving to Nathan's game...

So, I mentioned below that on the 4th, Stu The Wine Genius made the most delicious shrimp appetizer - a saltimbocca of sorts, shrimps and fresh sage wrapped in pancetta and grilled. We devoured them. Enter a craving... When my car died on Monday, it cut out a grocery run that would have included a stop by Whole Foods for some wild-caught Key West shrimp. No! Luckily, John was able to stop on his way home, although I forgot to specify what size shrimp to pick up... Turns out he grabbed the smaller version, too small to individually wrap and grill, so I innovated last night and sauteed the pancetta and sage until crisp, sauteed the shrimp with lots of garlic and fresh lemon juice, and served the shrimp topped with the crispy pancetta and sage. Damn tasty if I do say so myself. (Recipe posted in comments, below.)

As I also mentioned below, My Minxes and their girls came over on Tuesday to swim with Nathan and me. Man did we luck out with a stunning day, perhaps the best so far this summer. We had a super-simple lunch - grilledhot dogs, chips, and strawberries - but I also made a batch of gazpacho for us ladies. I adore cold, crunchy, spicy, salty gazpacho, it really hit the spot on a hot, sunny day. I dare say that Kim & Suz agreed. Thanks for a perfect day, girlfriends! (Recipe posted in comments, below.)

Tonight, my friend Michelle (she of Cancun in March and UW-Madison in 1987) will be here in the Minneapple on business from the Big Apple. Yay! I'm thinking grilled salmon over couscous with dill vinaigretteand pine nuts, inspired by the to-die-for version (pictured here) at The Post Ranch in Big Sur which I ordered for lunch two days in a row. (As I write this, I send up a little prayer for the town of Big Sur to escape the fires raging at its door, sigh.)

Moderate it: gazpacho is a delicious way to eat your veggies, and it's quick to make too (no cooking, just some chopping). Make it crunchy, or puree and sip from cups - either way (or a combo of both, that's how I make it), it's a delicious way to use up the abundance of tomatoes and cukes that are about to hit us at a garden, farmstand, or CSA veggie share near you. Can't wait!

There is nothing moderate about this heat, yowza! Hellish (96 degrees), humid (dewpoint in the 70s, that's tropical, my friends, yuck), scorching (nary a cloud to cast even a bit of shade), and stifling (just a whisper of muggy breeze would be better than nothing). Basically it's dripping, nasty, ugly HOT. A salad day, or ooh, a gazpacho day, both sound lovely, although I had neither. Meh, the heat makes me feel like I'm swimming in more of a fog than usual, so while I made it to the grocery store, I didn't actually prepare anything with the ingredients. Lame! I know! Perhaps I'll be more inspired tomorrow, when I get my veggies on. And, I picked up a pork tenderloin at the store today that I plan on grilling tomorrow with lots of barbecue sauce for quick pulled-pork sandwiches. (Nowhere near as gorgeous and decadent as the pork shoulder I slow-grilled last summer, but pretty damn tasty nonetheless.) In fact, I'll do it in the afternoon, before things get crazy in the evening, so we'll be good to go for a couple of days. Yeah, that'll put me back on track! I need to get back into fighting form for the weekend - I'm bringing a dessert to a dinner party on Friday night, Stu The Wine Genius and his wife Debbie are coming for dinner on Saturday, and Sunday the Baseball Moms and their boys are coming for a big swim. Woo hoooooo, it's gonna be a HOT one!

Smokin' out there, hooeeey! That's Minnesota for you (us), from mid-60s one week to mid-90s the next, with nary a lovely 70s in between. Sigh. So I'll forgive you (me) for complaining that one week you're freezing your butt off and the next yer sweatin' like a frizzy-haired pig. Or something. Damn!

Good for the veggies, though. I could technically have a baby arugula and frisee salad for lunch (with a simple vinaigrette, lots of freshly ground pepper, and a few fat shaves of Parm) - we'll see. I may hold out for greens from my first La Finca CSA veggie share pick up of the season, later this week. Can't wait!

I guess the heat is appropriate to mark the first day of summer - Nathan is officially done with 5th grade! I'm excited to have more time with him, I love hangin' with my boy. This week is nice and low-key, before the sports (driving) begin. Our plan is to snag some time at the pool, get a few projects done around here, maybe see a movie or two, have some friends over, get some exercise. You know, summer-y stuff!

We kicked off summer break with a lovely dinner at Dad & Susanna's last night, with my sister Etta (in from NYC), Stace & the Coopster, and Nathan & John. Burgers (not the fast-food variety, but elk burgers, given to Dad & Sus by their hunter-friend Ron), roasted veggies, pommes frites, and cake (mmmm, caaaake, Stace made it, white cake with chocolate icing and raspberries, rarrr), after which Nathan announced he'd had the perfect day. School's out, pizza for lunch, and burgers for dinner. That's my boy, measuring his days on the Scale of Tasties!

Hey, I'm back, quick report on the rather feast-y day we just spent. First, we earned our feast by running steps over by Minnehaha Creek - tough work on a hot day, we were pretty sweaty when we were done. Then an impulse stop by Turtle Bread in Linden Hills for a quick lunch. Icy cold gazpacho with fresh crusty bread, now that is a hot-day's lunch. In fact it was so good, we bought lots more gazpacho to take home, and a loaf of bread, and of course an oatmeal raisin cookie, and some honey-toasted peanuts to boot. Then, after some serious swimming (including with John, who snuck in a long lunch to get some time at the pool with us), we headed over to Byerly's and picked up trout fillets for the grill. So...nice healthy feast, eh? Grilled trout, gazpacho, fresh bread, sauteed broccoli (from the fridge), and ripe peaches - oh yes, peaches are officially good, woo hoo! (Buy organic if possible, "regular" peaches are very high in pesticide residue...)

I also whipped up a batch of tender turkey meatballs for the freezer - quick protein for busy nights. (In a toasted whole-wheat pita, with a little olive spread and arugula? Or crumbled onto a corn tortilla with salsa and avocado? Don't even get me started...)

Nice ways to kick off a healthy summer vaca - man, I love me some summer.