Heaven served in a soup bowl:)

And so after a really long and tiresome day I came back home to cool my heels and watch some telly and what do I see?

I spy Padma Lakshmi sitting in this really pretty villa, sampling some home-style Gazpacho:) Inspired, I decided to take a stab at making it Andalusian style;)

So here's what I did:
I took 3 big, ripe, juicy tomatoes and chopped them up. I retained the skin, but you could just blanch them if that's your style.
I diced the following ingredients :
2 onions
red pepper(3/4 cup),
cucumber(1/2 cup) ,
2 pods of garlic ,
2 slices of super crusty bread (purists use old stale bread. My response: *shudder* and *Nowayinhelllll*)

Take all these colorful ingredients and stuff them into your blender/food processor and add some salt, a teeny tiny pinch of freshly ground black pepper and some cumin (gives it such a hearty taste). Also pour some red wine vinegar in or just plain sweet vinegar and olive oil into this concoction and blend away. Now, some people soak the bread in water before they blend away, but I added a small amount of water only after nudging all the ingredients into the blender.

So there you have it, a quick recap of the spices: salt , pepper , cumin , vinegar (it could be from the bottle that holds your olives, plain vinegar, white or red wine vinegar..whatever floats your boat) , some water and olive oil!Whew!Don't forget any of them!!!

So once all this is  properly blended in you have your Gazpacho- dry and ready to chill:)

Just make sure there are no nasty, chunky pieces of anything floating around. I didn't grind it in too fine. I like that small crunch factor since its a cold soup and all. Most people cool it for a whole day or at least a few hours to give the cool ingredients some time to mix and meld.

I just put it in the freezer for an hour.What!!?!?! I'm all about the 'instant gratification'...and I blame my generation!:) and No, it didn't freeze or any such thing:S

For the grand finale-serve chilled , drizzle divine olive oil on it and garnish with fresh/dried thyme and parsley. I used mint instead of parsley.Enjoy it with toasted, crisped bread thats been slathered with herb-butter or garlic mayo.... tasted and smelt just the way I pictured heaven would;)

Hellsyeaa.. Modesty sure is overrated!:)