Grilled tomato gazpacho

It's tomato time! I've been grabbing tomatoes fairly regularly at the farmers market now for the past few weeks. One time I even bought a whole box so I could experiment with some canning! Needless to say I've had a lot of fun experimenting with tomatoes this summer - there's been canned salsa, canned seasoned tomato sauce, yummy BLTs, salad, and then this grilled tomato gazpacho!

Gazpacho is a chilled soup made from raw vegetables and usually in a tomato base. I'd never made one before and I thought it would be the perfect thing to do with all my tomatoes. I thought it'd also be the perfect thing to serve when Patrick and I were working hard on an outdoor project two weekends ago. We prepped and stained our deck over a weekend and definitely needed refreshing meals when we ate. That was the plan anyway but staining the deck was a hard task and wore me out! So the gazpacho ended up being made on a Monday night... still tasty whether or not you've been working outside or inside all day!

Grilled Tomato Gazpacho from EatingWell

   Serves 6

Ingredients
2 lbs  ripe plum tomatoes
1 small red bell pepper
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded, divided
1/2 cup torn fresh or day-old country bread, (crusts removed)
1 small clove garlic
2-3 tbsp red-wine vinegar
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Directions
   Preheat grill to medium-high. Grill tomatoes and bell pepper, turning a few times, until they soften and the skins are blistered and charred in spots, about 8 minutes. [I used our grill pan] Transfer the pepper to a plastic bag and let it steam until cool enough to handle. Peel off the skin; cut the pepper in half and discard the stem and seeds.
   In the blender place half the pepper. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, core and roughly chop. Add the tomatoes, skins and all, to the blender. Add half the cucumber to the blender along with bread, garlic, vinegar to taste, parsley, paprika, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth. Add oil and blend until well combined.
   Refrigerate until room temperature or chilled, at least 1 hour.
   Before serving, finely dice the remaining cucumber and bell pepper; stir half of each into the gazpacho and garnish with the remaining cucumber and bell pepper.

We served the tomato gazpacho with a hefty fruit and cheese plate - crackers, mozzarella cheese, and apples.