End of Summer Gazpacho

So arriving back in New York City after an amazing week in Costa Rica I realized something...

Summer is ending.

[sigh]

If I were still in sunny Florida I'd have another month (or two, or three) of summer weather to look forward to. But NYC is already getting temperature dips. So, to commemorate the last few days (maybe a week? maybe two? I'm hopeful...) of summer, here is my favorite summer soup recipe: gazpacho! My mom introduced me to her recipe years ago, and it's one of our summer staples. It makes a ton, keeps for over a week (or more, I'm not sure actually, it never lasts longer than a week because it's so good!)

It's an assembly-only recipe so it's foolproof, even for someone like me who doesn't love to cook. You start off will all your ingredients - fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, green pepper, onion, garlic, and lemon - plus dry ingredients including salt, pepper, sugar - and a few wet ingredients - water, v8 juice, tabasco sauce, olive oil, and white wine vinegar - and a half an hour later (depending on your dicing skills) you have yourself gazpacho!

A couple notes: first, I recommend making it the day before so all the flavors meld together. Second, as you can see below, I recommend dicing all your veggies first, THEN adding the wet ingredients, and lastly the dry ingredients. If you start with the water and V8 juice, all your veggies will splash as you add them in. Makes a mess (trust me on this one)!

Finally, enjoy the gazpacho while it's still warm out... nothing like cold refreshing (and HEALTHY) soup on a hot day :) It also works great for parties - or picnics in the park. We've done both!


Fresh Ingredients:

• 4 medium tomatoes, minced
• 1 green pepper, minced
• 1/4 cup onion, minced
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
• 2 cucumbers, peeled and minced

Wet Ingredients: 

• 2 cups water
• 2 cups V8 juice
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon tabasco

Dry Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper