Barefoot Bloggers: Gazpacho

First, I must admit, I debated about how much of this story to share because it makes me look kind of like a ninny.  But...well, we're all ninnies sometimes so I'm going to embrace it here, in hopes that maybe it will help someone else or make you all laugh your asses off at me or whatever....

For this Barefoot Bloggers recipe, it was my turn to choose.  When I figured out that I was going to be up in June, I decided it had to be strawberries or tomatoes.  In the end I decided on the Contessa's Gazpacho, just because it was something I hadn't ever tried before.  I figured, if I was going to jump, why not make all 116 Barefoot Bloggers jump with me, right?

Sunday night--our first official dinner in the new house--I was happily dicing away tomatoes, onions, and peppers, when I read a little further down into the recipe, "Put each vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do not overprocess!"  

Shit.  

See, I sold the blender at the garage sale, knowing that we were going to just buy a food processor after the move.  But, as said food processor had not been purchased yet, I was caught with my pants down between appliances.  It quickly became clear that just me and my knife weren't even going to get close to the desired consistency for the Gazpacho, and this was my recipe, that I got to pick, so I really wanted to get it right.

After turning up zilch on borrowing a food processor from a few different friends, I decided I was just going to have to go buy one that night.  But it was after seven, so my options were quickly becoming limited as stores closed.  I had my heart set on a black Kitchen-Aid, so I was on a pretty specific mission.  Best Buy? No luck.  Sears and Penny's? Closed.  Wal-Mart? Had the white one, but not black.  Target? No Kitchen-Aid, but one that looked kind of close, so in my tired, crankiness, I just bought it.

And regretted it the whole way home. 

Now, keep in mind, I had been at home painting and dickering with home improvement projects for an entire week.  I still had the blue paint in my hair, and I was all kinds of achy and hot.  And I had to go to work the next day, so I was already stressing about my in-box there.  And, and, and....  Upshot--when I walked into the door, I burst into gulping, sobbing, messy tears.  

Poor Sweet Husband was very confused.  When he finally sussed out that the root of the problem was that I had been forced to buy a substandard food processor in order to properly complete my Gazpacho, and now was going to have to use it (thus making it impossible to return) or we wouldn't have dinner....he wisely refrained from chuckling, and did what most wise husbands would do--wrapped the chopped veggies up for later and took me out for dinner.

Thus revived, I came home and ordered a food processor from Sears, which was able to deliver it before my chopped veggies went bad.  (I returned the knock-off to Target the next day.)  A few quick pulses in my pretty new Kitchen-Aid, and voila--Gazpacho!

We're just at the beginning of real tomato season, so I was able to get a few nice, big homegrowns that were super good.  And, as the soup develops more flavor as it sits, letting everything rest for a few days in the fridge was actually probably about the best thing that could have happened to it.  The resulting soup was spicy and cool and yummy.  Perfect with a few little cocktail shrimpies and some white wine.  Maybe not quite worth all the trouble I went through to make it, but definitely worth it for the non-ninnies among you!

For the recipe, see the link above.