get outta the kitchen!

Whew! It's 88 degrees here on the deck today and Weather Channel so kindly informed me that it feels like 91*. Super! Actually, I'm pretty happy after the long cold winter we have had. With the change in seasons comes a change in my eating habits. Once the thermometer goes past 85, I crave light, fresh, cold meals. Sometimes, that comes in the form of ice pops all day, but I'm being better this year!

I got the hankering for some fresh gazpacho Wednesday night and did a mental check on my fridge. Tomatoes? canned-check. Cucumber? check. Red onion? no- but dreamy red scallions! check! A quick stop at the market for some tomato juice, and I went home to hang out with my blender.

Doesn't it look yummy? And you can't go wrong with some fresh french bread to soak up the goodness.

My base recipe is off of the fantastic Ina Garten seen here. I'm a firm believer in figuring things out based on what you have already- so here's my more flexible and "my food processor doesn't work" version.

Ingredients

• 1 hothouse cucumber, seeded, but not peeled
• 2 bell peppers, cored and seeded (I like orange and yellow for color)
• 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
• 4 red scallions*
• 3 large radishes*
• 3 cups tomato juice
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar (or whatever kind you have!)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt
• fresh black pepper

 *CSA veggies! woohoo!  

Directions 

Finely chop the cucumbers, peppers, radishes, and red scallions. Put 1/3 of each vegetable into your blender along with the diced tomatoes and one cup tomato juice. Pulse until it is coarsely blended

Pour blender contents into a large bowl with chopped veggies, remaining tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well and chill before serving. Convince your man that the soup gets better as it sits, so please don't eat it all now. 

This is pretty much all I have eaten for the past 24 hours (along with watermelon!). It's delicious and certainly doesn't last for long in our house.

What's your go to warm weather meal?