Beautiful and Delicious Gazpacho
Okay, I gave you a green Gazpacho a few weeks ago. Now, I hand you the red. This is the thing though, I make this exclusively with a Vitamix and really believe the results have something to do with the power of that machine. I have not tried this in a regular blender, but I think you should and just cut everything up a little smaller and maybe give it a little more time to blend for the best consistency. It is important to have a couple of key ingredients for this mostly flexible recipe.Good Sherry Vinegar and smoked Paprika are what I believe set it apart from mediocre to fabulous. Those two pantry items will not sit idle in your kitchen-you will get plenty of other use for them (to begin with, substituting them for other vinegars and regular paprika in your own recipes). Don’t go cheap here, please!
I like Gazpacho in all shapes and forms. The rustic stuff with big chunks of vegetables and lots of garlic is great. So is a more refined version I’ve had that was satiny smooth with no veggie pieces at all and just some jagged and delicious croutons for crunch. I am falling right into the middle with this super quick and easy recipe. First, you are going to blend the hell out of a few ingredients to get a creamy base, and then you are going to spend a few quality minutes with your very sharp knife and cutting board, finely dicing some veggies for texture. You can scatter these on top (like I did for the fancy photo), or mix them in and pour into a to-go cup for a quick and refreshing lunch. Croutons are up to you. I don’t tend to go for them here, but you can make something crispy and garlicky if you desire. I love drizzling a homemade herb oil on top (see below).
The best part of this whole cooking experience is NOT TURNING ON THE STOVE! Yay! Oh yeah, and it’s also beautiful and delicious!
Plain and Simple Delicious Gazpacho
Ingredients
1 small red onion, cut into 2 halves
1/4 cup of good sherry vinegar
2 medium cloves of garlic, smashed with a few pinches of salt, under the blade of your knife
1 large slice of white bread (gluten free or with gluten-no matter)
Around 5-6large farm tomatoes, cored and coarsely chopped (don’t worry about blemishes)
1 medium cucumber, peeled and seeded and cut into 2 halves
1 medium pepper (green or any other color will do if you can’t stand green), seeded and cored and cut into 2 halves
1 teaspoon of Kosher salt (or whatever salt you love)
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
1/2 -3/4cup of EVOO
Optional, Basil or Parsley or Chives-Or no herbs at all! (I almost never use them), Croutons, any homemade herb oil for serving (blend a few handfuls of a fresh herb with 1/2 cup of EVOO and strain)
Method
Take one of the halves of the red onion and dice finely as you are able. Put in a small bowl and cover with the vinegar and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Get out the jug of your blender or Vitamix and toss in the garlic, bread, tomatoes, one of the halves of the of the cucumber and pepper (only roughly chop if using a regular blender), salt and paprika. When the onion has soaked, strain the vinegar into the blender, reserving the diced onion. Place the lid on and let her rip! I go to about medium speed on the Vitamix and that’s plenty. After a minute or two, pour in the olive oil through the top hole in the lid. Blend another 30 seconds and refrigerate immediately.
Take the other two veggie halves (cucumber and pepper) and dice as finely as the reserved red onion. Throw them in the same bowl and refrigerate too. You can eat this as soon as you like, really, but it’s best chilled for at least an hour and as long as overnight. Serve with a good handful of the diced veggies and a drizzle of your herb oil (if you have it). Serve it in cups, bowls, jelly jars, to-go mugs…
A Lovely Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart
Nantucket isn’t called the Grey Lady for nothing. On the loveliest of days, all of the houses are grey shingled and depending on the season, the landscape is quite grey as well. Add fog to the mix and you end up with a palette of palest silver to deep charcoal. For this reason, on grey August day #3, it was imperative that I find the best and brightest colors to bring to the table.
Happily, Bartlett’s Farm has a decent selection of heirloom tomatoes at the moment and so I decided to do the easiest and classiest thing and make an heirloom tomato, herb, and goat cheese tart. This falls right into my sweet spot-beautiful, delicious, seasonal, flexible, and impressive. I will tell you immediately that I already had a Dufour Puff Pastry in the freezer when I made this decision. That is the only part of the recipe I am going to be inflexible about (besides the part where you have the best tomatoes ever). Use a puff pastry that is made with real butter! That said, you can add all kinds of other embellishments, or none at all, and make it with only tomatoes, goat cheese (I am in love with this brand), and herbs. Your choice!
Look at those beauties!
I happened to have a few spoonfuls of grated parmesan, a tiny bowl of leftover arugula pesto (see the previous post about squash soup), a jar of tomato jam and a lovely few sprigs of fresh thyme. So those were my embellishments. Do what you like. Buy a container of pesto and use that, make a paste of parsley and chives from the garden and use it. Do you have a small hard piece of gruyere or cheddar that you will eventually toss out? Give it a new life and incorporate it into the recipe. Go wild!
Here’s how.
Summer Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart
Ingredients
1//2 of a Dufour Puff Pastry sheet, defrosted in the fridge for 3 hours
1 tablespoon of pesto (or none at all)
2 tablespoons of grated parmesan or pecorino ( or any other kind of cheese, or none at all)
3-5 beautiful and perfect tomatoes, sliced into about 1/4 inch rounds and laid out to drain a bit on paper towels
1 tablespoon of tomato jam, melted over a low heat (or hot pepper jelly, or none at all)
Around 3 tablespoons of very good goat cheese
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme (or basil, or 1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary, or parsley…or none at all)
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon of good EVOO
Method
Preheat the oven to 400° and set a rack right into the middle space. Line a 1/4 sheet pan (or larger sheet pan or cookie tray) with parchment paper. Carefully place the rectangular half of the pastry onto the parchment. If using, gently spread the pesto over the pastry, leaving 1/2 inch of border around the edges empty. If using, sprinkle the cheese over the pesto. Lay your beauteous tomatoes atop the pesto/cheese (or empty pastry) in any lovely pattern you like, leaving the border free. If you like and have it on hand, brush the melted tomato jam over the tomatoes. Crumble the goat cheese decoratively over that and sprinkle with thyme. Salt cautiously and wave the pepper mill over the whole thing. Right before sticking it in the oven, dribble the oil over your gorgeous masterpiece. Bake for about 20-30 minutes, depending on your oven, until the pastry is a deep golden brown and the borders are puffed. You want it to get as crispy as possible without looking burned. Serve hot, warm or room temperature and impress yourself or some lucky friends and family.
Panzanella Salad
I simply love a dish that is not only beautiful, delicious, and flexible, but that also uses food that might otherwise be thought of as past it’s prime. Consider the lovely and frugal Panzanella Salad. She will gladly showcase your stale bread and wilty herbs, and you could even oven roast a subpar tomato for this one if necessary. The only ingredients that must be excellent are the mozzarella and olive oil. Really! And did I mention you don’t need to turn on the stove? Get on it while the tomatoes are still at your farmer’s market!
Panzanella Salad
Feeds about 2-4
Ingredients
2 Big slices of good, stale country type bread, cut or torn into bite sized pieces (you can also dry your bread out in the oven, but that means turning your stove on!)
2 cups of tomatoes of all types, cut to a similar size as the bread
6-8 small mozzarella balls (bocconcini) , sliced into rounds
1/2 cup finely diced onion (red or white) covered in red wine vinegar to soak for 10-15 minutes
1 cup of peeled and seeded cucumber, cut into small half rounds
1 clove garlic, grated, minced or smashed
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup EVOO (your very best!)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste
Method
In a large bowl, toss together the bread, tomatoes, and mozzarella. Drain the onion, reserving the vinegar, and add that to the mixture. Now, either using a whisk and bowl, or handy small food processor type machine, make the dressing, using the garlic, mustard, oregano, 1/4 cup of reserved vinegar, and EVOO. Mix the dressing into the salad (I use my hands and will say this is the best way to toss and dress every salad!). Add the remaining ingredients and let it sit for at least 15-20 minutes. If it’s hot as hell outside, I sometimes even chill this for an hour (a crime in some peoples books). Serve it on a bed of greens if you like.
New Tricks and Watermelon Tomato Salad
In the last year, I’ve become a great fan of the Instagram. At the urging of the young people in my life, I signed up around this time last year and have really grown to love the platform for sharing and showcasing my food and travels. Today, I took a plunge and signed up to do that magical trick, where it says “Link to recipe in profile” (you know what I’m talking about!). This will be my first post using that magic!
First step is a perfect watermelon!
Nantucket is known for her cool ocean breezes and beautiful summer weather (yes, she is a she!). As someone who grew up here, I’ll tell you that many summer days can also be chilly, windy, foggy, wet, grey and occasionally hot and muggy. Yes, muggy. That’s where we were at last week, when I decided to take the ubiquitous watermelon/tomato salad route for my client.
it felt like I was traveling back to 1998, making this little number, but the tomatoes at Bartlett’s Farm are beauteous, although still grown in their hothouses, due to the crappy winter and spring we had here. Watermelon must be seedless! The feta should be the best you can afford (I love the one from Cricket Creek Farm) and the mint is mintier when freshly picked out of a garden.
The Mise en Place is on point here...
This salad is all about the dice (small and uniform), the vinegar (something with a little depth), and the temperature (chilly!). I’m trying to get better at this recipe writing stuff, so here it goes...
Ingredients
For this dish which fed 4-6 people happily, I used:
3 cups of diced tomatoes (about 3 medium-sized)
3 cups of diced seedless watermelon
1 1/2 cups of diced feta
2 Tablespoons of good, aged Sherry Vinegar
2 big handfuls of chopped mint (chocolate mint took over my garden this year and it worked beautifully!)
A splash of olive oil to finish
salt and pepper to taste, and I’m serious about that taste part! The feta could make your salad salty enough or it could use more. Get a spoon and find out before you feed your tribe!
Method
Toss the fruits, splash with vinegar, and chill for an hour. If too much juice has accumulated, strain it out and save it for a delightfully fruity salad dressing. Add the feta and mint and toss gently. Do your tasting and add a little salt if necessary. A quick grind of pepper and a splash of your best olive oil to finish. Serve it in the prettiest bowl you can find-the salad’s colors deserve it.
