Property of Jessica Gordon Ryan and The Entertaining House

I've been talking about gazpacho non-stop, it seems, this summer. I've always loved the soup, but for some reason, this year I simply cannot get enough of it. The other day I was on the beach with a couple of girlfriends and off I went on my gazpacho tangent. We'd all been to the local farms and our counter tops were brimming with bowls of fresh veggies but, what do you do when you simply have too much, or when they're just about to become overripe? I tend to make gazpacho, or ratatouille, or pasta sauce. As we packed up to leave the beach, Sara went home with the sudden urging to make gazpacho. She chose to follow the recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant Cookbook. The next day I was the lucky recipient of her culinary prowess. And dare I say, this very well could be the best gazpacho I have had all summer? So, even though I know I just posted a recipe here the other day, this one is simply too good not to shout it out from the rooftops and share it with the world! And while normally I am a huge fan of deviating from the original recipe to put my own twist on it, this time I am telling you not to. Don't do it! Don't mess with it. Don't mess with perfection!

Following is the Gazpacho recipe from The Moosewood Restaurant Cookbook.

Even though everything is going to go into the food processor, you will still need to chop many of the ingredients beforehand - a little extra work, but so well worth it!

Ingredients:

4 cups cold tomato juice

1 small, well minced onion

2 cups freshly diced tomatoes

1 cup minced green pepper

1 teaspoon honey

1 cucumber, diced 2 scallions, chopped

Juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 lime

2 tablespoons wine vinegar

1 teaspoon each of dried tarragon and basil (if you have fresh, use 1 tablespoon of each) dash of ground cumin

1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley

dash of Tabasco sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil salt & pepper to taste

lemon for garnish

Process all the ingredients except for the tomato juice in a food processor and be careful not to over-process. . . once the ingredients have been well blended, pour in the tomato juice, mix well, and cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.

I love to eat this during the week for lunch. So this is not only healthy but super economical.

Property of Jessica Gordon Ryan and The Entertaining House

I prefer gazpacho most when eaten on its own, as a meal... give me a nice crusty hunk of bread and, today, so tender, fresh mozzarella drizzled with pesto infused oil... Really doesn't get any better than this!

Here's a closeup of the infused oil...

Property of Jessica Gordon Ryan and The Entertaining House

It's so super easy to make and I keep it on-hand in the fridge and use it with everything.

I simply kept about 2 tbs of pesto that we had used for something else and added olive oil - 1/2 to 1 cup and a few pine nuts, a shake of crushed pepper and a little bit of sea salt. Let the oil marinate in the flavors for a while. When my infused oil gets low I simply add more... refill as needed. If you prefer you can marinate and then strain the oil from the pesto mixture - but we like the bits of pesto. Of course, if you end up scraping out all the pesto we'd never blame you. You'll just have to whip yourself up another batch. Infused olive oils are so tasty and very healthy!

XOXO,

Jessica