GazpacHO NO....

Over the weekend I decided to attempt Gazpacho, a cold Spanish tomato based raw vegetable soup. I had a wonderful version made by Natalie Dee when I was last in D.C. so I got her recipe and tried to duplicate it. But alas.... my version was far and away lacking a layer of flavor. I have a few theories about that but first the recipe:

Jaleo's Gazpacho, serves 6-8
1 Cucumber (peeled, seeded, chopped)

1 Green bell pepper (seeded, diced)

3lb ripe Plum Tomatoes (diced)
2 cloves Garlic

1/4c sherry vinegar

1/2c Oloroso sherry

3/4c EVOO

Puree all ingredients with 2c of water until well blended. Strain into a pitcher and refrigerate 30 minutes. Garnish: thick bread croutons, evoo, diced cucumber, diced green and red bell pepper, sea salt.

So here are my theories for why it didn't turn out quite right:

1. Per Natalie's suggestion I didn't not strain the Gazpacho. I don't think this really had anything to do with the flavor. And would skip the straining in future attempts.

2. Target doesn't sell Sherry vinegar so I had to use red wine vinegar.....

3. I drank all my sherry so I used chicken stock instead of Oloroso sherry....

4. My blender wasn't big enough to fit the whole batch at once so I did two small batches.... probably not really a big deal either, but upon seeing the large quantity of this recipe I would only make half next time, unless feeding a large group.

Overall I had a good experience with this endeavor. I pawned a great deal of it off on my parents and their friends, who were baffled by the idea of cold soup, but all were pleased and complimentary when asked how it tasted. This is coming from a group with basic pallets, but I'll take what I can get!