Our big slicer tomatoes are here! They're nothing special, just Better Boy plants I bought, but wow they taste good. I have 8 plants in the ground and they are loaded. We're getting 6-10 tomatoes every day. We're making huge batches of gazpacho using our own tomatoes, peppers, and cukes. Mmmm. Liquid summer.
Gazpacho
2 cucumbers, halved and seeded, but not peeled
2-3 bell peppers, cored and seeded
4-8 tomatoes
1 red onion
3-6 garlic cloves, optional
4-6 cups tomato juice [If you use V8 or something similar, use the low sodium version AND also reduce or eliminate the salt you add, since the juice has salt]
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
salt to taste [we use about a teaspoon if the tomato juice we used had any salt in it, otherwise 2 tsp]
1 teaspoon black pepper
Roughly chop the cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and red onions into 1-inch cubes. Put each vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Don't overprocess.
After each vegetable is chopped, combine them in a large bowl and add the garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well and chill before serving. The longer gazpacho sits, the more the flavors develop. It's fabulous after sitting in the fridge overnight, and still good for days after that.
This recipe (loosely borrowed from the Barefoot Contessa) is so simple, and endlessly flexible. Add or leave out whatever you want, and experiment to get the right taste. If you don't have any tomato juice on hand, you can just make it with more tomatoes, by processing some of them into juice.
