The first time I had gazpacho I was in my early 20s and on a date with my soon to be husband (now ex). He took me to a nice seafood restaurant on the pier in Redondo Beach, CA. Being a girl from Kansas whose parents had pretty simple tastes, I had never even heard of gazpacho and cold soup, why that was just WRONG! Well, it was one of the best things I had ever eaten. :) Seeing as how it wasn't something that my now-ex would ever willingly eat, that was the last time I had gazpacho for many, many years.
Fast forward 30 years (yep, I'm getting old!). We stopped for lunch after the Farmers' Market a couple of weeks ago and it was so hot that all I wanted was a salad and maybe some soup. When the waitress told me they had gazpacho, I promptly ordered it. I gotta tell you, for our little town, we have some pretty good restaurants. The gazpacho was good but kind of reminded me of "thin" salsa. Since then, I've been on a mission to find a good recipe. I recently remembered that Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, has a recipe for gazpacho in her new cookbook "The Pioneer Woman Cooks - Food From My Frontier" so I decided to give it a try. I highly suggest you give it a try too!!
I did a couple of things differently, I omitted the celery because I didn't have any, I used salad shrimp instead of grilled shrimp (the rest will be used for Cowboy Ceviche later in the week), I used Clamato instead of tomato juice which I thought paired well with the shrimp, and I omitted the chopped hard boiled egg as a garnish. You can find Ree's recipe here.
All of the vegetables I used came fresh from the Farmers' Market Saturday but if you are lucky enough to have a garden that is actually producing, it would be even better! And just so you know, Jerry thought this was excellent (after being initially skeptical) and just the thing for supper on a hot summer day! :)
Linking up with Heidi for The Country Garden Showcase.
P.S. My blogging buddy Nancy at Little Homestead In Boise is doing a giveaway to celebrate her one-year Blogiversary! Hop on over and sign up, she's giving away some really cool stuff!
6 comments:
Hmmm....I wonder if I could come up with a vegetarian version.
Not sure how my family would respond, but it's worth a try!! They like their meat and potatoes...but taste buds need to learn new things, right? :)
Thanks! No tabasco in there? :)
I've never seen it with shrimp. Anytime I've seen it there was only vegetables.
Sounds like a refreshing meal to have on a hot day. :)
OK, I'm with you (or where you WERE 30 years ago) on the "I just can't eat anything called cold soup". Although it sounds and looks wonderful, I'd have to call it a "salad" in order to eat it. Yep, I'm nuts.
Post a Comment