Skip to main content

Harvesting the Bounty: Our CSA Recipes Part 2, Joy of Cooking's Gazpacho with Colorado Yellow Tomatoes

Last week I shared last year's salsa recipe, but we're still getting tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and you can't just make salsa! Last year was our first year in the CSA, and every time we got a new bounty, I went online and searched recipes by ingredients. But we had extra single ingredients too... and made pickles out of the extra long italian cukes, parboiled and froze okra, green beans, and diced potatoes, and made pesto out of all that arugula.

But next to salsa, our second favorite recipe that uses everything is the Gazpacho. It brings me back to summers in Chicago growing up. I can't take claim for the recipe (although as always, a little altered!), but the fresh CSA vegetables, uncooked and melded in flavor, speak for themselves! So much so that a local chef tasted our first batch with yellow tomatoes and said it was the best he'd ever had. Palisaide Colorado, Grown With Love, baby! Thanks Cameron Place!

Joy of Cooking's Gazpacho with Colorado Yellow Tomatoes
Gazpacho is better served the day it's made but if preparing it for the following day, use half the jalepeno as the heat increases in time.

Finely chop but do not puree, in a food processor or blender:
1 med. cucumber, peeled
1 med. green bell pepper
Remove to large bowl, then chop:
1 small onion
1/3 cup packed fresh parsley leaves
Remove to the bowl. Add and chop:
2 1/2 lbs. ripe yellow tomatoes, peeled, seeded
Remove to the bowl. Add to bowl:
1 cp tomato juice
1/4 cp red wine vinegar
3 Tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 fresh jalepeno pepper, seeded and minced
2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh taragon, minced
1 tsp fresh basil, minced
Stir well, refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Serve in chilled bowls. Makes about 4 cups.

Garnish with chopped yellow tomatoes, red pepper and basil.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Gluten Free for Psoriasis

Recently I've been putting my researching brain cells to work on studying the Gluten Free way of life. Since the age of 14 I have had psoriasis, and recently it's been showing signs of progression to psoriatic arthritis, a progression that occurs in about 20-40% of the cases (studies are still incomplete, although the reverse is 80% of PA patients have had psoriasis, so the two are definitely linked). I've been tested for allergies in the 1980s (none), and I'm a pretty natural consumer as well, so I don't use body products with harmful ingredients like parabens or sulfates. Herbal and homeopathic remedies and dead sea salts have all helped reduce my inflammations, but have never eliminated the disorder completely. I was vegetarian for 7 years in the 1990s, and that never cleared up my psoriasis either. Because of its progression I've started researching the diet and how it relates to the disorder, and stumbled upon several articles and studies that now link...

Specific Carbohydrate Diet

After 2.5 years on a strict gluten-free diet and showing only marginal improvement to my skin condition of psoriasis, (although pain free from psoriatic arthritis), my naturopathic doctor has recommended the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). I had grown frustrated with the worsening allergic reactions I was having to several new foods, and went in for a checkup about two months ago, seeing both my naturopath and a new acupuncturist.  For me this reaction is severe joint pain and swelling on my right side, and I am so sensitive to gluten that now anything made in a factory with gluten - as well as all "inflammatory" foods such as soy and the "nightshades" family now - gives me this reaction. Both docs agreed I should go off the nightshades, refined sugars, and soy, and add some acupuncture, Chinese herbs and natural remedies (aloe juice, apple cider vinegar, and more) to my daily rituals to enduce some intestinal healing.  Since then I have seen a 50% reduction i...

My switch to all natural Henna - Part 2

(Continued from Part 1) Henna Gods, I am truly impressed. Granted, my mantra has been, "the Indian women have such beautiful hair..." so the results had to be good.  But even so, my hair looks awesome. A more natural shade of red than the chem dye- slightly lighter than my natural brown tone (is that possible? is that from the chamomile?)- than I've ever had in the four years that my stylist and I have been tampering with tubes of colors like Michelangelo. Not wine red, not Redskins red, not Mahogany-Obsidian red.  I had been shooting for my mother's red. Scottish/Irish red, a dark Ginger. I think I'm finally there, or damn close. So how'd we get there? Here's the last 48 hours: 10pm Monday Large ceramic bowl Mixed 300g of fresh organic Rajasthani Indian Henna powder with 3.5c of warm chamomile tea from distilled water, steeped for 20 minutes and cooled with 6 cubes of ice Covered with plastic wrap, left on counter 9am Tuesday No "red...