Salute to Tomatoes, Part II: Smokey Orange Gazpacho

Last Summer, I was obsessed with finding a great gazpacho recipe. I tried a number of them. All were good but I’m still tweaking and playing and trying to find THE gazpacho recipe. Anyway, I made this the other night and it was pretty good. Plus, you basically just throw it all in the blender and stand back. That’s always fun.

Smoky Orange Gazpacho
4 nice big tomatoes (I used some on the vine hothouse ones), chopped
1 bell pepper, orange or yellow, cored and chopped
1/2 red onion or 1 sweet white onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 hot house cucumber (peeling optional), chopped
1/2 cup worth of bread cubes or crusty, big croutons
handful of parsley
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
juice of 1 orange
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/4 cup olive oil
6 oz tomato juice
salt and pepper
Garnish: parsley or cilantro leaves and some yogurt…oh and more crunchy croutons

Add the tomato juice and 1/2 of the tomatoes to the blender. Give it a whir. Then start popping everything else in. The rest of the tomatoes, onion, bell pepper and cucumber. Blend.

Add the olive oil, basil, parsley, orange juice, spices and olive oil. *whir* *whir* again.

Lastly, throw in the bread or croutons. I used these huge, crunchy, garlic croutons we had. That was a good call, they thickened the soup a bit and were oh, so good. Finish blending it all up and taste it — adjust seasonings. Let it chill in the refrigerator for about two hours before serving.

If you used croutons, save a few for a garnish. Also, drizzle some yogurt and drop some cilantro or parsley leaves to make it look pretty.

Okay, enough tomatoes and healthy soups — tomorrow is lamb. Lamb that’s been cooked for 7 hours! Ha! Crazy! Mahahahaha!