Recipe Thursday: Gazpacho

Helllloooo! First things first, happy birthday to my brother Nick! And congratulations to him on a very exciting job offer- I'm so proud that his hard work and smarts have paid off. Nick and Lauren definitely got the brains gene out of us Wonus children. I'm still trying do determine which gene I got... maybe the weird one? Or the loud one? Who knows, but I'm desperately searching for a way to make my "specialness" profitable. Anyways, I've got a lot on tonight's agenda to make up for my absence: a yummy summertime soup for today's Recipe Thursday, the announcement of this week's ABC (only 4 days late), and a smattering of musings and commentary on life.

Holy smokes, time has been flying. I can't believe that March is practically over. It's also our 5 month wedding anniversary today! I've already been salivating over the Living Social and Groupon getaways, trying to come up with something romantic, fun, and moderately inexpensive to do for our real anniversary. Yes, it's a full 7 months away, but it's never too early to plan these things, and it's nice to have something to look forward to. Please let me know if you have any good ideas or see cheap flights/ weekend packages.

Onto the recipe! If I haven't said it before I'll say it now: I love soup. I can make a batch of soup and automatically have lunch for the next 2 days. Plus, it's just so versatile and hard to mess up. If you're new to cooking and want to boost your confidence in the kitchen, soup is the way to go. I've only ever truly messed up one soup. It was sort of a Mexican tortilla-sweet potato ordeal and it called for 2 tablespoons or so of chili powder. I reached for what I thought was the chili powder, got a little heavy handed with it, and didn't think twice. The more spices the better, that's what I say. Carl and I sat down to eat it and I almost cried when I took the first bite and realized my mistake. I'd accidentally used cayenne pepper instead. Ay caramba, it was spicy! Don't worry, we still ate it. I'm pleased to say that in the time since I've made A LOT of soups, and they've all turned out great. Moral of the story: make more soup, and read the labels on your spices.

I recently made one of Carl's all time favorites, gazpacho. I think he would pull an Augustus Gloop and drown himself in a river of gazpacho if he ever encountered one. We had an abundance of very ripe tomatoes so I thought gazpacho would be a nice way to use a bunch of them up, and welcome the onset of warm weather. I used the Barefoot Contessa's recipe as my inspiration and it was super easy. Here's the all-star cast:

And the obligatory glamour shot, of course:

Red bell pepper, cucumber, tomato juice, apple cider vinegar,
olive oil, salt/pepper, onion, tomato, and garlic.

You just pulse each ingredient in the food processor individually to prevent the over-processing of any one ingredient. Then add the liquid ingredients and let the flavors marry. It gets better the longer you let it sit, so I made this right after lunch and we had it for a late dinner. Look how pretty it is!

All the chopped veggies, before adding the liquids

Carl had caught some fish and a few crabs that day and we had a nice little feast.

This week for the ABC's I pulled the letter 'R,' which originally stood for recycling. As I started to think about how we could improve our recycling habits I realized that we're actually doing pretty good as it is, so I did a little switch-up and changed 'R' to stand for reading more- fiction, that is. I've been reading health and nutrition books left and right, but it's been months since I've sat down and done some true pleasure reading. So I dusted off my Nook, charged it up, and bought a few books. Right now I'm reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief and so far it's really stinkin' good. Ever since I graduated with my English degree I've found that I'm a lot more hoity toity about my literature without necessarily meaning to be. I guess it's the curse of having sat through hours of "smart book club" and writing paper upon paper analyzing everything from Chaucer to Kurt Vonnegut. I have so much more respect for rich and meaningful writing and The Book Thief is really satisfying in that regard. Expect a review when I'm done!