Gazpacho the cold soup!

My husband is the Gazpacho lover!  He made it for me when we were first married.  What a fun soup!  Very odd but very good.  It was one of those that I did not know what to expect.  It is not your warm and inviting soup that one thinks of eating in the middle of fall and winter on a cold day.  This is a soup for a hot, summer day and it is very refreshing!  When you have an abundance of produce from the garden this is a great soup to make.  Or if it is getting to the end of the season and you need to pick your produce and do something with it then make this soup.  There seems to always be a lot of tomatoes in the garden and I always have a lot of herbs.  Even when we lived in the RV I had a little kitchen garden with lots of herbs and tomatoes.  Even my kids liked it a lot.  Another great thing I learned is it does not need much salt if any.  I just used some dried cayenne in mine, so it was like a spicy V8 with some chunks!

What the soup looks like.  Very red.  My husband said to use only a few chunky vegetables and it does make a difference.

Just the vegetables I used.  All from the garden.  And very colorful!  Heirloom tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, onions, cucumbers (I removed the seeds), red & orange peppers, garlic, basil, parsley. 

Blend up 8 tomatoes, 1/2 of the onion, 1-3 garlic cloves (garlic tends to make it spicy when used raw), and 1/2 c basil.

I like small pieces so I used our vegetable chopper, then they are all the same size and it cuts them perfectly small.  And I add that into the blended tomatoes and herbs.

I minced up the parsley.  It is nice to have it in small pieces also.

Then I added chopped yellow tomatoes for a fun color.

See some of the vegetables.  This is in the big bowl of soup.

Gazpacho Soup

8 tomatoes, blended

1 medium onion, 1/2 blended and 1/2 minced

1-3 garlic cloves, blended

1/2 c basil, blended

1 medium cucumber, remove seeds and minced

1/2 orange pepper, minced

1/2 red pepper, minced

5-7 little yellow tomatoes, minced

1/4 c parsley, minced

Salt &/or pepper to taste

1. Blend tomatoes, 1/2 onion, garlic cloves, basil together and pour into a bowl.

2. Chop/Mince cucumber, peppers, yellow tomatoes and 1/2 onion.

3. Mince parsley and add to the bowl.

4. Stir well and serve with crackers or crusty bread.