Where have you been all my life, Gazpacho?

Given my predilections for salads and soups, as well as the fact that I live where the weather gets freaking hot, you would think that I would've figured this one out before now. I'm going to blame my total inability to join these colourful dots on some kind of extended/recurring Hashi induced brain fog. Hell, I blame most other things on it, so why not?


Anyway, I have now found you Gazpacho and will never let you go. Oh dear, that sounds a little too much like the man of African extraction who followed me today and tried to initiate contact. Having had experience as the target of a Nigerian stalker when I lived in HCMC (he was well known for this and was a very abusive & dangerous person), I did not hang around to find out what this guy's intentions were. It was enough that he had turned his motorbike around, followed my tuk tuk, gotten off his bike, followed me into my faourite Korean cosmetic shop and tried to talk to me. I rabbited out the door, into the adjacent mall door, went straight up an escalator then wended my way through a couple of hundred clothing and shoe stalls, ending up in a dinky-di-doe electronics shop that sold everything from home karaoke set-ups to dust busters. I bought a cute little pair of speakers for my laptop so it was not a total bust. I then wasted a significant amount of time before heading back downstairs to the supermarket to purchase the ingredients for my cold tomato soup.


I looked online for a recipe and of course there were only about a thousand at first glance. In the end, I pastiched a couple together and hoped for the best. Here's how it went:
 1 hothouse cucumber, halved and seeded, but not peeled (use 3 small - we only get small ones here)

·     2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded (next time 1 red & 1 yellow)

·     1kg tomatoes 

·     1 red onion

·     3 garlic cloves, minced

·     1 litre tomato juice (no sugar)

·     1/4 cup white wine vinegar (next time part raspberry·vinegar part white wine vinegar)

      1 Tablespoon olive oil

·     1/4 teaspoon salt & 1/2 teaspoon pepper

      1/4 cup fresh chopped herbs - spring onions, basil, cilantro whatever is to hand...

·          Roughly chop the cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes (deseeded), and red onions into 1-inch cubes. Put each vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do not overprocess!

After each vegetable is processed, combine them in a large bowl and add the garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well and chill before serving. The longer gazpacho sits, the more the flavors develop.