Sunday, July 15, 2012

Gazpacho Recipe

I know I've raved before about Trader Joe's gazpacho and my  opinion stands; it is delicious and I rely on it for  a quick, satisfying taste treat. Though TJ's container of soup is a bargain, I was spending a lot of money on it.  Eventually I discovered that for about the same price, I can make about 6 times as much soup.

I based my recipe of of Ina's Gazpacho.  I used one yellow and one red pepper, five small pearl tomatoes, one red onion, and one cucumber.  Ina recommends you rough chop the veggies and then use a food processor but I just chopped everything fine.   I used the garlic press on the 3 cloves of garlic.  Instead of tomato juice, I used a 6oz can of tomato paste and thinned it with water.  Next time I think I'll use broth to thin it.  I added about 4 cups of water but you should do it to taste.   I added the 1/4 C olive oil and almost 1/4 C vinegar.  Be careful with the vinegar!  Then I added the juice of one orange and a bit of orange zest - I got that from reading the ingredients on the TJ's version. Of course, I added red pepper flakes. I'm thinking a jalapeƱo next time.  Then salt and pepper to taste.

I ate some of mine right away but it gets even better with time.