Spicy Gazpacho

Have you heard the stories about people leaving boxes of garden vegetables (mostly zucchini, I think) on their neighbors doorsteps because they have so much the don't know what to do with it?

Come drop the box !! I live in the city and pay through the nose for some of this stuff!

Lets say you woke up to find a box of tomatoes at your door, ripe ones that are only going to last a day or two. What are you going to do with all of them? After your done chuckin' a few at your neighbor, pull out the trusty blender and make soup!

My version of Gazpacho is below. The traditional Spanish version tends to have some day old bread tossed (after soaking in water) but I don't usually have day old bread cuz we are bread hounds at our place. Feel free to use a Cuisinart instead of a blender and throw in any extras of what ever you have around, like celery or extra peppers. I make mine pretty spicy (this last batch I used 2 whole cayennes, arriba!) so adjust the peppers to your liking. I don't always take the skin off the tomato, although I think it's better. If they are ripe enough, you can often just peel most of the skin off without going through the boiling-process hassle.

Serve this along side a good hunk of bread and you've got a great lunch or light dinner meal in minutes. And you'll see, that you can even be fat and happy with soup!

Spicy Gazpacho

Depending on your blender, you may need to blend the ingredients in separate batches, which is okay. It's all going to to end up in the same place. When pulsing, you want to achieve a very soupy texture while keeping a fine dice at the same time.
In a Blender or Cuisinart, pulse to finely chop:

1 cucumber (leave the skin on, chop into large pieces)
2-3 peppers, use a variety if you have them: I like sweet banana and red bell, again large chop
1 small red cayenne pepper (use less if you prefer a milder soup)
About 1/2 cup olive oil - use this just to help achieve the consistency you prefer
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/8 cup pomegranate Balsamic vinegar (regular balsamic is fine too!)
lemon (1/2 juiced)
salt

Pour that into a bowl. Add to the blender and pulse to finely chop:

2 garlic cloves, rough chopped
1/2 small onions, rough chopped
1 lb peeled tomatoes (roughly 2-3 large tomatoes), rough chopped
1/2 cup of parsley
1 Tbls of paprika

Add to the cucumber mixture and stir. Place in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour. Enjoy!