tomato gazpacho

so there's a guy that comes to our shop and takes all of our food and coffee waste to his farm for compost. i love that we do that, even though this time of year it is more difficult- the stuff starts composting while it is still here waiting to be picked up- ugh. the other night when he was coming through he brought in a beautiful basket of garlic, squashes, tomatoes, and cabbages. all stuff that was grown on his farm, fed by our waste. full circle stuff that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and connected and hungry.

i took the basket home and stopped by the dirty knees garden for some supplemental freshness. gathered some really great peppers: green bell peppers, some jalepenos and white bell peppers. a few zucchinis were just begging to come home. and there will be an eggplant so soon! i can't wait for that. the cherry tomatoes are like candy!

the gazpacho turned out really great. in my mind, you can't really mess it up if you start with the good stuff that tastes like sun and heat and is juicy! threw in some fennel chunks from other projects. 2 big cukes with their seeds out and chopped up smallish. 6 big tomatoes chopped and then i did some fancy french business and pulled this trick called tomato concasse with another 6 tomatoes.. removed the skin and seeds and smashed them up in the chopper for tomato juice. probably more work that its worth, but hey. street cred. two green bell peppers and two white. a jalepeno and a handful of garlic cloves in the chopper with some red wine vinegar. a sweet onion chopped smallish. some fresh basil and parsley. a dash of olive oil and then of balsamic. lots of salt and a bit of sugar and some pepper.

the fun thing about gazpacho is that there is really no order of operations. like in making hot soups- none of the starting with the fat, then the mirepoix, adding whatever else needs a saute, adding any flour, deglazing, stock, etc. you can just throw things in till you get it where you want it. and that is fun. this one is on the green and yellow side of the color spectrum with nice crunch and zing and acid and a little heat.