July 17, 2012 – Raspberry Gazpacho

Here comes another heat wave.  I don’t particularly mind the heat wave other than I couldn’t really think on my walk home today.  Instead of hanging out with the lovely KP and company, I decided to be economical and wait to spend any more money until payday and make some Gazpacho so my kitchen wouldn’t cook me alive.  If I’m being perfectly honest, I had planned to make some Gazpacho this week for lunches, but hadn’t gotten to the task yet as I’ve been busy reading (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer).  I decided to try a few new things in this Gazpacho, mainly to use Raspberries as the fruit (I’m pretty sure I don’t like non-fruit Gazpachos, but that has yet to be proven) and to use Kale instead of the traditional Romaine.

Raspberry Gazpacho – from my brain

Ingredients:

• 2 cups raspberries – check
• 3 handfuls Kale – check
• 1 small cucumber – check
• 1 heirloom tomato – check
• Garlic Salt – check
• Lime juice – check
• Cilantro – check
• Apple Cider Vinegar – check
• Balsamic Vinegar – check

Step 1: Cut the tomato into respectable chunks, taking out the seeds.  Place them into your favorite metal bowl of mixing awesome.

Step 2: Realize your garlic is no longer good, curse you warm weather, and decide to use your garlic salt instead

Step 3: Cut your cucumber into reasonable chunks, add to the bowl.

Step 4: Rinse your Kale, then add to the bowl.

Step 6: Add the raspberries to the bowl and mix.

Step 7: Add a healthy dose, roughly 1 tbs, of the apple cider vinegar to the bowl and stir. Add a splash of balsamic too, stir.

Step 8: Add your ingredients to your Cuisinart mixer, slowly so as to not encourage spilling.  Add a dash of lime juice and garlic salt.  Blend.

Step 9: Wish that you had a real blender, because let’s be honest this has been a gazpacho heavy summer with no end in sight and the whole "scooping out and adding in" is getting a little lame.

Step 10: When all the blended ‘zpacho has been added back to the metal bowl of awesome, add in your cilantro (because you forgot before, about 1 tsp), and continue to add garlic salt to taste.

Not all Gazpacho are created equal.  This Gazpacho is more tart than my others have been, and I think it has to do with two big factors: 1. The use of Apple Cider Vinegar (the heat must have been getting to me when I decided to try that) and 2. The lack of Elephant Garlic, or perhaps simply garlic.  It’s not so much that I hated this gazpacho, or even that I totally disliked it. I just wasn’t in love with it.  It tasted closer to V8 than my gazpachos normally do, and because I used Kale instead of Romain, it doesn't look particularly appetizing either (although the nutritional punch is higher!)

This foodsperiment gets a +5 for not turning on the oven, +5 for nutritional value,+5 for really using mainly my brain, -5 for a lack of garlic, and -3 for looking really weird.  Happy Sperimenting!

(Photo NOT Included as the Gazpacho Yelled "PLEASE DON'T LOOK AT ME I'M HIDEOUS")