{"id":864,"date":"2014-06-03T14:30:38","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T19:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcandres.com\/?p=492"},"modified":"2015-11-06T15:21:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T21:21:27","slug":"a-raw-deal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=864","title":{"rendered":"A Raw Deal: Gazpacho"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D864&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><div id=\"attachment_495\" style=\"width: 455px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Gazpacho.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-495\" class=\"wp-image-495\" title=\"Gazpacho\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Gazpacho-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"445\" height=\"334\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Gazpacho-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Gazpacho-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 445px) 100vw, 445px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-495\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the raw<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When my youngest daughter saw the soup on the dinner table this week, she groaned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCold soup?\u00a0 Can\u2019t you just serve that to the grown ups?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like most kids, she has pretty narrow parameters about the way she likes foods.\u00a0 She\u2019s more adventurous than her sister, but to both of them, cold soup is a raw deal.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, that\u2019s the only way to serve this week\u2019s soup, which is none other than Gazpacho.\u00a0 This dish is at once very familiar and very, very fresh, so fresh it requires no cooking at all.\u00a0 And,\u00a0 in light of the heat wave we\u2019ve been going through here, that was a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>Gazpacho is a classic and very seasonal soup.\u00a0 Something we modern shoppers have gotten away from since we can get whatever produce we want all year round.\u00a0 If we want tomatoes in January, you\u2019d better believe we\u2019ll get them, but we can also be sure they\u2019ll be trucked in from a long way away.\u00a0 Every fruit and vegetable has a time during the year when they\u2019re at their best.\u00a0 And if you\u2019re making a soup with fresh produce, that\u2019s the time of the year you should make it.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve written here before that as a Californian, I noticed a subtle change of seasons but never appreciated the passage of time.\u00a0 I knew it was winter when navel oranges went on display in the supermarkets. \u00a0But that was the only connection I made between produce and the calendar.<\/p>\n<p>Now as I move through the aisles of my favorite grocer\u2019s (it\u2019s Caputo\u2019s if you need a reminder), I see the ebb and flow of produce with every passing month.\u00a0 Each season has its own colors and flavors and those are the ones I buy.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to be a locavore to care about fresh fruits and vegetables, but if you care about taste, following the seasons is the best option.<\/p>\n<p>Summer is the true season of tomatoes, ditto for bell peppers and cucumbers. That\u2019s the real reason I made Gazpacho this week.\u00a0 Although in truth, if I&#8217;d waited a few more weeks, this soup would have been even better.<\/p>\n<p>This cold Spanish soup, typically comprised of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and garlic, has been helping us peasants get through the hot summer months for\u00a0 hundreds of years.\u00a0 I did go off the beaten path a little by adding cilantro and avocados. \u00a0But these additions only add flavor and richness to the soup.\u00a0 The avocado in particular gives traditional gazpacho a fullness and consistency similar to that of cream or cheese. It also contributes to the soup\u2019s raw goodness.<\/p>\n<p>Another\u00a0 great thing about fresh, cold soups is that their temperature allows you to incorporate competitive flavors into a recipe.\u00a0 Whereas warmer dishes heighten their individual flavors, cooler temperatures tend to mute or even mask the different ingredients.\u00a0 As such, cold soup allows cooks to get away with things, e.g. my daughters\u2019 love of avocados allowed me to sneak a whole bowl of fresh vegetables past both of them.<\/p>\n<p>Revenge isn\u2019t the only dish best served cold.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bonus: <\/strong>I haven\u2019t tried it yet, but I just read that you can keep leftover avocados from turning brown in your refrigerator by spraying the exposed flesh with Pam or some other spray oil (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.yumsugar.com\/How-Stop-Avocado-From-Browning-8513133\">click here to see<\/a>).\u00a0 Fat\u2019s a great barrier so it makes sense to me.\u00a0 If anyone out there gets to try it before I do, please leave me a comment about the results.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gazpacho<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n4 cloves garlic<br \/>\n2 cups cilantro<br \/>\n1 46 oz. can tomato juice<br \/>\n2 beefsteak tomatoes, diced<br \/>\n2 cucumbers, peeled and diced<br \/>\n2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded and diced<br \/>\n2 avocados, diced<br \/>\nsalt and pepper, to taste<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Add the garlic, cilantro and tomato juice to a 3+ quart stock pot and puree the mixture to a relatively smooth consistency (no big chunks of garlic and no big residual cilantro stems).<\/li>\n<li>Add the diced tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and avocados and stir it all up.<\/li>\n<li>Adjust the flavor to your liking with salt and pepper.\u00a0 A little bit of salt really brought it all together.<\/li>\n<li>Serve cold.<\/li>\n<li>Goes great with light pasta dish (my sister made a great rapini and garlic spaghetti, which she still owes me the recipe for) and crusty bread.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Note:\u00a0\u00a0 By now you should realize that I think everything goes well with crusty bread. You\u2019re right, I do think that, but only because it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image Credit: Photo of an early summer tomato and one of its possible outcomes, by the author.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Once again the Soup Blog coolly presents flavors that may give you the chills. Sometimes it\u2019s better to just take the plunge than inching in gradually.\u00a0 Let me know what you think.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> responding.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When my youngest daughter saw the soup on the dinner table this week, she groaned. \u201cCold soup?\u00a0 Can\u2019t you just serve that to the grown ups?\u201d Like most kids, she has pretty narrow parameters about the way she likes foods.\u00a0 She\u2019s more adventurous than her sister, but to both of them, cold soup is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,17,4,57,126,64,30,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avocado","category-bell-peppers","category-cold","category-cucumber","category-no-dairy-products","category-herbs","category-tomatoes","category-vegetarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2263,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/2263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}