Green Gazpacho

Hope y’all don’t mind back-to-back green posts. And to the frog who sang the words: “It’s not easy being green,” I would like to submit this gazpacho as evidence to the contrary. Not only did I find it eons easier than last summer’s white gazpacho, which almost broke my blender, but I also found it a lot less fussy than the yellow version of two-summer’s-ago. The green one’s sole challenge lies in the gathering of ingredients, but once you’ve dragged everything home and washed all the produce, dinner comes together in as long as it takes you to put it in your blender and then encourage that blender to blend. (My blender, much like its owner, needs encouragement, otherwise it’s liable to cop an attitude and be like: “There’s too much to blend, so I’m not even gonna try for the stuff up top, OK? Did you hear me? Only the bottom stuff is getting blended!”)

Please don’t skip the croutons. The croutons turned this bowl of soup from great to superb, from appetizer to dinner, from amateur to professional, and from completely green, to green with off-white bread chunks.

Which brings us to the portion of the post titled, So, What Else is Going on With You?

Well, for starters, I made that strawberry cake for a friend’s baby shower and realized once again that I love decorating cakes. I even attempted a few icing roses (roses made out of icing), but my icing wasn’t thick enough. Lesson learned!

Secondly, my friend Kara and I started a blog, Grizzly and Golden, a while ago, but are just recently kind of getting the hang of it. Please join us over there sometime and say hello!

Also, I received this sword in the mail. It’s insanely heavy!

Lastly, thanks to an article my pal Jodi sent me, I found this amazing gif-focused gymnastics blog. Aaaaaaaaand, goodnight!

Green Gazpacho slightly adapted (mostly by cutting the recipe in half and leaving out the celery) from Plenty

serves 3

for croutons

2 thick slices of sourdough bread

about 4 tablespoons of olive oil

salt

for gazpacho

1 small green bell pepper, seeded

3 mini cucumbers, peeled

1 slice of stale white bread, crusts removed

½ of jalapeno, somewhat seeded

2 garlic cloves

½ teaspoon sugar

¾ cup lightly toasted walnuts

3 cups baby spinach

heaping ½ cup basil leaves

2 tablespoons of parsley

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

½ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons Greek yogurt

about 1 cup water

ice cubes

salt to taste

pepper

To make the croutons, preheat the oven to 375-F. Cut the bread into ¾-inch cubes and toss them with the oil and a bit of salt. Spread on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the croutons turn golden and crisp. Remove from the oven and allow to cool down.

Roughly chop the bell peppers, cucumbers, bread, jalapeno, and garlic. Place in a blender and add the sugar, walnuts, spinach, basil, parsley, vinegar, oil, yogurt, most of the water, an ice cube or two, the salt and some pepper. (Even though I was halving the recipe, there was no way all of this was fitting into my blender. I ended up blending it in batches, finally adding everything together at the very end.) Blitz the soup until smooth. Add more water, if needed, to get your preferred consistency. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning.

Lastly, add another cube or two of ice and pulse once or twice, just to crush it a little. Serve at once, with the croutons.