Gazpacho Mash-up

One of the good things I did when we moved aboard the boat was to consolidate my many recipes into three notebooks: Cold Weather Foods, Warm Weather Foods, and Desserts.   I used plastic sleeves for three ring binders – both full page and half page – and inserted my favorite old recipe cards, magazine pages, and recipes printed from the web.

It recently occurred to me that I haven’t been perusing those recipes enough to find old favorites or new ideas.

Until yesterday.

Jaime and Keith on Kookaburra invited us for fajitas and since I was working anything I took had to be prepared in the morning. Instead of going for my old recipes I pulled out one of my favorite cruising cookbooks, Cruising Cuisine by Kay Pastorius. Kay and her late husband cruised in Baja and the Caribbean and her cookbook is full of provisioning ideas and recipes for local foods. I was delighted to find that we had everything needed to make Kay’s Gazpacho. Kay’s tips are useful, too.

In a small-capacity boat refrigerator, gazpacho is an ideal way to store fresh vegetables. Once they are pureed they take up less space and are not subject to bruising or dehydration. If you add a couple of tablespoons of vinegar to gazpacho, it will keep in the refrigerator for about three weeks. <Who knew?> When I am short on space, I puree the vegetables and add everything but the tomato juice. Just before serving I open a can of chilled juice and add it to the vegetables.

Kay’s Recipe:

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

3 pounds of tomatoes, peeled and cut in chunks

1 small onion, peeled and quartered

1/2 bell pepper

1 cucumber, peeled, cut in half length-wise, seeded, and cut in chunks

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon salt or to taste

freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

2 cups of tomato or V-8 juice

Puree or finely shop all vegetables, Add the ingredients and pass the garnishes.

Garnishes

1/2 cup finely chopped green onion

1/2 cup finely chopped bell pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped cucumber

Garlic croutons – made from crustless white bread cubes sautéed in garlic and olive oil until golden.

 

I had made gazpacho on a weekly basis back when we had a house. I used a different recipe, and loaded it with more veggies and Frank’s Louisiana Hot Sauce.  I think my recipe came from Mom’s Betty Crocker Cookbook. I know I’ve had it for years, because the recipe card is written in my much more legible younger hand and has my family name on the “from” page. As if I had given it to myself. du’h. (I showed EW the card and said, “This is what my penmanship used to look like.” He replied, stunned, “What happened?” “Computers happened.” this is true. I can’t write legibly as fast as I can keyboard, and god forbid I were to slow down and actually be able to read my writing.)

 

 

1 Can beef broth

2 1/2 cups tomato juice

4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic split and tooth picked

1/4 tsp. hot pepper sauce

1/4 tsp. salt

dash freshly ground black pepper

1 cup each finely chopped green pepper, cucumber, tomato

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup chopped zucchini

1/2 cup diced celery

Combine first eight ingredients and shake or stir well. Place in a container and chill for four hours.

Remove garlic (that’s why you toothpick it.)

Add remaining ingredients, stir or shake and chill for another hour. This stuff fits into a 2 quart container.

I love gazpacho. Still, I’ve never made it since we left Maine. I think the thought of two quart upright container in our small boat refrigerator was one of the stumbling blocks. Still, I’d made it so often that I remembered most of the ingredients and the methods I’d used. So, when I made my gazpacho for our dinner on Kookaburra I did it “my way”.

Here you go:

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

Dice the following:

3 medium tomatoes, cut in chunks. It’s all the fresh tomatoes I had. I did NOT peel them.

1 small onion

1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

1 cucumber, peeled and seeded

1/2 teaspoon cumin

juice of one lime

1 teaspoon salt or to taste

freshly ground black pepper

2 12 ounce cans of V-8 juice

Many dashes of Franks Louisiana Hot Sauce

I would have added fresh parsley if I’d had it..

Garnishes

1/2 cup finely chopped green onion

Crumbled corn chips

It was delicious. It fits in one of my horizontal Lock ‘n Locks and goes easily into the fridge next to the egg Lock ‘n Lock.

I’m glad to have gazpacho back in my repertoire and told EW that he’d be presented with it often.

Related articles

Summer Gazpacho

Watermelon Gazpacho

Foodie Friday: Zesty Summer Gazpacho

Comments

[Black Indians]

Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter updates. I've been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like this. Please let me know if you run into anything. I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.

[Vintage Arab Sex]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Living aboard a sailboat. Regards