What’s for Dinner?:  Mexican Gazpacho

Leah over at Struggle in a Bungalow Kitchen is shopping around for a gazpacho recipe.  Inspirational, Leah, thanks!  Sounds like a perfect starter for a sticky-hot summer evening, and a healthy dish, to boot.

(I don’t know why I didn’t think of this myself sooner over the last two weeks; we’ve been having icy-cold Bloody Marys to start each evening.  The tomato juice should have jogged my cooking muse!)

I’ve found several recipes for gazpacho in my collection of cookbooks.  Craig Claiborne’s version calls for four raw eggs; while more nutritionally complete than other recipes, the idea of raw eggs doesn’t sound good to me.  Another author’s Tuscan recipe calls for more basil than I care to use right now.  The best one so far is from Sheila Lukins’ All Around the World Cookbook:  Mexican Gazpacho.

This particular recipe sounds light and fresh, perky and piquant, yet easy to make. If tomatoes are in season in your neck of the woods, support your local farmer, pick up some locally grown produce and give this a shot!

Mexican Gazpacho

Serves 6.

1.             In a blender, puree the roasted peppers with 1 cup of the tomato juice and pour it into a large bowl.  Whisk in the vinegar, olive oil and remaining 1 cup tomato juice.

2.             Add all the fresh vegetables through the tomatoes to the tomato juice mixture.  Working in small batches, place the mixture in the food processor and pulse on and off 6 to 8 times until blended but still chunky.  Remove to a second large bowl.

3.             Season with salt, pepper, and the Tabasco sauce.  Stir in the parley.  Refrigerate at least 6 hours before serving.  Serve chilled, garnished with the avocado and hard-cooked egg.

Notes:

Red Wine Vinegar – I may cut back on this a bit, taste first then add either balsamic vinegar or lemon juice, depending on the desired effect.  If the tomatoes are a bit flat, I’ll opt for lemon juice.  If the tomatoes are a bit tart, I’ll opt for the balsamic vinegar.  A little lime juice might also be nice, along with a dash of cumin and chopped cilantro instead of parsley.

Chopped Red Onion – Vidalias are available at the grocery right now; I think I’ll use them instead.

Hard Cooked Egg – I might just substitute a little crumbled Queso Fresco for the eggs, since I have the Queso and I’m fresh out of eggs!

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A specimen of the genus "Jack-Left-Behind"

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Recovery

Damn it all, vacations can really bite.

Getting back into the groove is so cumbersome after arriving at a state of utter and complete relaxation.  I feel oppressed, held back by the low ebb of energy and the weight of detritus still accumulated, lying about this house.  Baggage containing beach towels and swim toys, taunt me in their still unpacked state; another bag of unread books, nearly a bushel of tomes, nags at me.  There’s beach sand in the bottom of every bag, stuck to my shoes, an energy-sapping pixie dust sprinkled here and there, mocking me.

Worse, I can’t think of a thing to blog.  I’ve spent time yesterday and this morning catching up on all my blog reading, yet nothing has riled me up into a writing frenzy.  As I read along I could feel my head bobbing in ascent, like one of those stupid toys in the back window of a passing Crown Victoria on its way north.

My sweetly productive pre-vacation routine has been shattered.  I had it down to a science, too.  Take my morning walk, get the kids fed and dressed, catch up on my blog reading, post to my blog; throw in a load or two of laundry, run errands and tackle the housework, fix lunches.  Read a little, post some more.  Surf and apply for job postings, look for a house, post a final blog entry.  Cook dinner, do the dishes and some yard work.  The simple life of an unemployed mother of two – what could possibly muck with that?

Damned vacation, that’s what.

Mornings were incredibly slow while on vacation; I’d have several false starts just getting out of bed every day.  At five-thirty a.m. on those days my mother went to work, I’d rouse to the smell of bacon and coffee, then drift back to sleep.  A nearby nest of downy woodpecker chicks demanding their sunrise breakfast would rouse me again at six a.m.  Some time between seven-thirty and eight-thirty, a child would nudge me and tell me they were going down to the beach with a grandparent.  Nine o’clock might finally find me sitting upright, when the honking of geese or the squealing of seagulls annoyed me out of my slumberous torpor.

I might not be dressed until noon, schlepping about the deck with a second or third cup of coffee while lazily swatting at mosquitoes.  Maybe I’d even make it down to the beach by noon, watching the kids play in the sand and surf or help them fly a kite. 

Each evening after dinner we’d watch for the sunset – those boring, same-old-everyday sunsets over the lake.  I took no less than fifty photos of sunsets inside two weeks and I can’t tell which day is which without looking at the photo filename.  We’d stay up playing games with the kids until their bedtime, pushed out beyond their normal bedtime by the unusual lateness of twilight on the northern lake.  At eleven-thirty I’d slip down to the beach, swaddled in sweats to protect myself from the threatening hum of mosquitoes; I’d lie on the beach, listening to the lake’s slowing heart beat and watch the heavens above.  Sleep would lure me back to the house only after I’d seen my fill of the dusty Milky Way and blinking fireflies overhead. 

The unhurried sameness, the smell of pine and oak trees, the lulling shush of the waves on the beach, all have quietly worked against me.  I am undone.

So, here I sit, beckoning the blog muse, pleading with her to return from the beach, begging her to toss her flip-flops and come back to the real world.  What will it take to undo the damage done by this vacation?  Getting to bed before Letterman and Leno begin their monologues?  A couple mornings of tossing back espressos at five-thirty a.m.?  A new exercise regimen, to punish my flesh back into submission like some new hair shirt? 

What will it take to recover from this damnable vacation?

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