Gazi Pacho!

[Harpoon]

But you gotta yell it out really loud, enough to scare the cats.


Well, no, but my son likes it when I do that, he thinks I'm funny.



A few days ago I had some gazpacho at the coffee shop here and it was yummy stuff. Had a spice kick too which I liked.


I figured I'd try my hand at making some up myself, without the spice because my wife's tummy doesn't tolerate it well.


A food processor and/or blender will be helpful....


1 onion
3 cloves garlic (whole cloves or minced)
4 ounces of sliced mushrooms (I used low sodium canned)
1 tbsp olive oil (I used some of the macadamia nut oil tobabotwo sent me, thank you again sir!)
1 zucchini
1 cucumber
3 green onions (all but the ends of the top part and the roots)
2 stalks of celery
1 green pepper
1 carrot
1 tbsp parsley (fresh if prefered)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
4 cups low sodium Campbell's Tomato Juice (extra if neccesary)
1/4 tsp tabasco or picante sauce (optional)


Lightly saute onion in oil until translucent, then add mushrooms and garlic for another minute and put in big mixing bowl. Chop all the veggies as finely as possible and combine in bowl with onion, shrooms, and garlic. Add tomato juice until desired consistancy. Mix in parsley, lemon juice, tabasco sauce, and red wine vinegar. Chop/puree in blender to desired consistancy in small batches.

Chill for a few hours at least, serve cold.



I did a HUGE amount of this stuff kind of on accident as I was putting it all together. Ended up with maybe 12 or so cups of soup which amounts to about 12 servings. I seperated it into three containers as I blended in batches, one batch has the hot sauce in it and is labeled as such.


Dunno how this will turn out in the end, but it's tasted good so far.......


I've found several variations of this all over the place. One variation uses four (or more?) tomatoes instead of the tomato juice.

You might be able to get away with adding other veggies as well, something to play with.

Last few days around here have been above 80º during the day, FINALLY, and I decided to try this one for the family over the weekend.

 

[Harpoon]

Oooohhhhh.... =)


I hate to admit it, but I'm kind of dissappointed with the way mine came out.

It's OK, my wife likes it, but there's something just not quite right. Either I put too much of something in it or not enough. I suspect it might be the cuchs, the zuchs, or the 'shrooms...


Mushrooms were in one of the recipes I was using as a guide.


I also came across a recipe that used garbanzo beans, but I gather too many of those can cause INR problems so I use 'em sparingly most times because I never have enough to be consistent in my diet.



I'm not "salt free" by any means. I pay attention to how much I take in and try to keep it reasonably low, but I'm not as "fanatical" about it as I used to be when I first got home from the hospital.

Less is better, but I'm not fussing to see how low I can go these days.


Watching carbs now too, though I'm not doing Atkins or anything like that, just paying more attention to what I take in.



I'm a BIG fan of picante sauce though...

Almost tossed a few jalapenos into a batch of the gazpacho I was blending up when I made it, figured that plus the picante might be a bit too much.


I do have one (four really) BIG lapse in my efforts for a heart healthy diet.

Summer festivals. We have a fair July 4 event, a Latino fest, a "harvest and crafts" fest and a county fair here every summer. At each one you can find a Spanish foods vender (I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head) and I always have to get my meat pocket (empanda) on rice and beans with a beef kabob and a liberal drizzling of picante sauce...

It's my contribution to the "summer traditions" everyone have.

 

[Harpoon]

Daily salt allowance.... I like that. =)




Mine goes towards certain brands of chips mainly... Oh, and the food at the coffee shop which can sometime be loaded with salt.


Cheese gets an "exemption" in my book just because I'm addicted, but I don't eat a lot of it. SUPPOSIDELY Heluva Good is reintroducing their low sodium cheddar cheese... I haven't seen it as of yet, but I emailed the company a while ago (they used to make the stuff along with another company called Tillamook) to find out if I could still get LS cheese and they said they were going to bring the products back...


I shop around for the lowest sodium swiss I can find (there are variations among brands) and lorraine cheese is really good and low sodium as well.



Love the cheese... Can't get enough of the cheese....


Put shreaded cheddar on the gazpacho.... Yum yum...