Barefoot Bloggers: Gazpacho

Gazpacho is on the menu for Barefoot Bloggers this week thanks to Meryl of My Bit of Earth. I've loved gazpacho ever since I was old enough to be willing to try it (willingness to try gazpacho, i.e. cold vegetable soup, might be as good of a demarcation line between childhood and adulthood as anything). Nowadays I find gazpacho to be like pizza -- I think even bad gazpacho is pretty good.


I'll never forgot a couple of summers ago when we were selling our first house. The whole house-selling process was a complete mystery to me. A couple of days after we put our house on the market, the doorbell rang. When I answered it, the husband of our real estate agent walked in carrying a huge Tupperware full of gazpacho for the agent walk-through. The fact that selling a house appeared to involve real estate agent spouses feeding gazpacho to other real estate agents did not help make the process any less mysterious for me. But we sold our house, so I guess it worked.

Much as I like gazpacho, I've never made it before. Well, I suppose that I did make white gazpacho a few weeks ago, but I've never made a traditional gazpacho like Ina's before. This is super fast to make if you use the food processor as Ina suggests that you do. Each vegetable gets processed separately and then thrown together in a huge bowl with tomato juice, vinegar, oil, garlic, salt and pepper. In the Barefoot Contessa cookbook, Ina suggests that you use Sacramento Tomato Juice for superior flavor. Well, some weeks I feel like running around town looking for things like Sacramento Tomato Juice, and some weeks I don't. This was a "don't" week, so I used Campbell's Tomato Juice, and the gazpacho tasted just fine to me.

Ina's recipe also calls for 1/2 cup oil (note: I made the full recipe in the book, which is double the version posted here on the Food Network website). While I love and trust Ina, I strongly suspected that I could get away with much less than 1/2 cup oil. I decided to start with 2T and go up from there if it needed it. It didn't - 2T was plenty in my opinion. Reducing the oil makes this a really light soup.

I was concentrating so hard on my planned oil reduction that I completely forgot the vinegar. Trust me, you definitely don't want to forget that. I think poor David thought that I was trying to kill him when he took the first bite of the soup without vinegar. Once I added the vinegar it was much better.

I really thought this soup was delicious, and I ate it every day for a week. A large container of this soup will be a fixture in my refrigerator this summer. Thanks for the great pick, Meryl!

Ellie: White Gazpacho with Grapes and Toasted Almonds

I've been looking forward to this week's Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe, White Gazpacho with Grapes & Toasted Almonds, chosen by Lauren & Paul of I'll Eat You. I'm a huge fan of tomato-based gazpacho, so I thought that Ellie's cucumber based version sounded interesting.


This is a cold soup, as gazpachos tend to be, so it's a nice option when the weather gets warm. It's also one of those "throw everything in the food processor" soups, so you could pour yourself a cold drink and sit and fan yourself while the FP handles the hard labor.

The soup is thickened by white bread that gets soaked in water. I've made Ina Garten soups that use bread to thicken soup - it's really a pretty cool trick. And it worked like a charm here. The cucumber, garlic, scallions, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, toasted almonds, salt and olive oil get processed along with that soggy white bread. Ellie does not say to chill the soup before serving, but I chilled it. I like hot soup, warm soup, and cold soup, but not room temperature soup.

The soup gets garnished with more toasted almonds, more scallions, more cucumbers, and green grapes. Sidenote: I paid $8.14 for a smallish bag of green grapes for this recipe, a fact so shocking to me that I deemed it worthy of a Facebook status update ("Cathy just paid $8.14 for a smallish bag of green grapes.") For those of you not versed in social media, a Facebook status update is a far more serious and solemn affair than a Twitter status update (at least for me, as I will tweet anything). The cucumbers were 2 for 88 cents, though, so overall I am sure this soup was still far less expensive than take-out White Gazpacho with Grapes and Toasted Almonds would have been.

The verdict? I am not going to give up on this soup yet, because I think it has lots of potential. But the cucumber/garlic ratio in the recipe was WAY off, in my opinion, and I found the soup to be way too garlicky. The problem could be that the recipe calls for "2 large English cucumbers or 3 large regular cucumbers." Perhaps measurements (2 cups? 3 cups?) would have been useful, because "large" can be subjective. My three cucumbers looked large to me, but I sure wish that I had used that 4th cucumber (they were 2 for 88 cents, remember?) to help balance out the garlic. Other than that one issue, I felt like the soup had a nice texture, and it has the potential to be great, once we get the garlic situation under control. David noted that the garnishes make the soup, and I agree - garnishes are not optional here, kids. I will try this one again with some adjustments. It is a pretty, elegant soup (although I could not make it look pretty for pictures, sorry!), perfect for those summer garden luncheons that Ina always hosts. Thanks for the pick, Lauren & Paul!

White Gazpacho with Grapes and Toasted Almonds
2007 Ellie Krieger, All rights reserved

Ingredients

2 large English cucumbers (or 3 large regular cucumbers), peeled and roughly chopped
3 slices white bread, crusts removed
1/2 cup warm water
3 cloves garlic
6 scallions, whites only, divided
1/4 cup white wine vinegar or Sherry vinegar, plus more, to taste
1 teaspoon lemon juice, plus more to taste
1/4 cup plus 4 teaspoons slivered almonds, lightly toasted, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more, to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup green grapes, halved

Directions

Set aside 1 cup of chopped cucumber for a garnish. Soak the bread in water until soft, about 2 minutes. Place soaked bread, the rest of the cucumber, garlic, 3 of the scallions, vinegar, lemon juice, 1/4 cup of the almonds, salt and 3 tablespoons of olive oil in the bowl of a food processor and process until cucumbers are completely blended and liquid and almonds are almost completely invisible, about 1 to 2 minutes. Season with additional salt and vinegar, if desired.

To serve, ladle 1 cup gazpacho into a bowl. Mound 1/4 cup reserved chopped cucumber, 1 tablespoon scallions, 2 tablespoons grapes and 1 teaspoon almonds in the center of the soup.

Barefoot Bloggers: Mexican Chicken Soup

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! And since nothing says "Thanksgiving" quite like Mexican Chicken Soup, I am particularly excited about today's Barefoot Bloggers selection, chosen by Judy of Judy's Gross Eats. I only have about a 50/50 success rate when I try to schedule posts (it's that darn AM/PM thing, it gets me every time!), so I am hoping that this posts on time. And I will look forward to coming around and seeing all of my fellow Barefoot cook's creations when I am back in front of a reliable (or any) internet connection!

This was such a great recipe. It is nice to see a tex-mex soup that is so relatively heavy on the veggies. Start out by sauteing onions, carrots, celery, garlic, and jalapenos, and then add your stock and seasonings:



I used leftover stock that I froze after making it for that awesome Butternut Squash Risotto. I tried halfheartedly to defrost it under running water at the kitchen sink, and then got lazy and just added the ice blocks to the pot. Can I do that? Well, I did. And my soup did not seem to suffer.



This is a wonderful soup, and a great addition to any "Mexican soup" arsenal. The flavors here were subtle -- definitely Mexican (I said "ole!" I really did!) but not overpowering. Cumin often seems to dominate in soups like this, but that wasn't the case here. Obviously, it can easily be spiced up to suit personal taste if you like a little more heat and a little less subtlety. Adding the corn tortilla strips straight to the broth is a brilliant idea -- it gives the soup a little extra "heft" without actually turning it into a heavy soup. I topped mine with copious amount of chopped cilantro, because I think cilantro makes everything taste better. David, on the other hand, thinks that cilantro makes everything taste soapier, so he skipped it. We ate this the first night I made it -- David is not as much of a "soup" person as I am, in the sense that I think when I make soup for dinner, he wonders where the rest of dinner is. But he definitely liked this, and thought it was a great appetizer course with some enchiladas! I gave some of it to my good friend and carpool partner, Elizabeth, and pretty much ate the rest of it myself over the course of a week. And this is such a healthy soup that I didn't even feel one moment of regret that I ATE THE WHOLE POT.

I hope that everyone is enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving day with their loved ones. I am thankful for the fabulous food, creative cooking ideas, and fun community spirit that I enjoy every day with my blogging friends. And I am thankful for the food on my table, the kitchen I have to cook it in, and, most of all, the family and friends with whom I am richly blessed to share it.

Barefoot Bloggers: Cream of Wild Mushroom Soup

This week's recipe for Cream of Wild Mushroom Soup was chosen by Chelle of Brown Eyed Baker. I love mushrooms, and sometimes prefer a nice grilled portobello over a good steak, so I was thrilled by this selection. The week I made this, I decided to go straight to Whole Foods to do my weekly shopping, because I was not sure that my beloved Publix would be able to fulfill my wild mushroom needs for the week, and I really don't like going to multiple grocery stores. As it turned out, Whole Foods was not able to meet my licensed-character fruit treat needs for the week, so I ended up back at Publix anyway.

The recipe started with a stock made with mushroom stems, yellow onions, carrots and thyme. Oh, how the aroma of the stock vegetables filled the kitchen with the earthy, fragrant scents of fall!

It almost made me forget that it was 93 degrees outside. I wish that they made "Mushroom Stock" in a scented candle, because the reality is that I probably won't make this soup very often, even though hubs and I both loved it.

Once the stock was done, it was time to get to work on the major non-liquid components of the soup, namely, leeks and wild mushrooms. I bought two ginormous, tree-like leeks at Whole Foods. Note how they dwarf my cutting board.

I then battled the leeks, and the leeks won. Any leek farmers reading out there? Please consider sending instruction manuals with your stalks. Thanks.

Mmmmm, mmmm . . . feast your eyes on all that buttery leekness. Or should that be "leeky butterness?"


Ina is many wonderful things -- multi-talented, hugely successful, genuinely likeable. But afraid of butter and cream, she is not.

The soup was lovely. It had a complex mixture of flavors, and somehow managed to be both delicate and uber-rich at the same time (perhaps the white wine and cream combo?)

Please check the Barefoot Bloggers blogroll to see an attractive picture of this soup. I would hate for you to not make it just because of my ugly picture, and there are so many super-talented food photographers out there who have no doubt captured its creamy, wild mushroomy, soupy essence much better than I ever could. I tried, I really did. I even broke out the fine china in my attempt. But while I adore this food blogging thing, I am still a really, really bad photographer. Maybe Santa Claus will bring me an SLR camera and some photography lessons (I better start writing my letter!), but in the meantime, you should look elsewhere for the photographs. Phew, I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

This would be a special occasion soup for us, a soup I'd make for an appetizer course at a sit-down dinner party in the cool weather months. We have three small kids, however, and most of our friends have little ones as well, so most dinner parties that we throw (a) are not sit-down dinners, to put it mildly (b) might just involve breaking out the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets for the kiddies; and (c) will most definitely involve squeezing ketchup into the ears of a Zoo Pals plate:
A soup this exquisite would be offended that we invited it to such a low-brow gathering. We're sort of in that very casual "big pot 'o chili" phase in our lives right now. I am confident that we WILL get to the "soup course" phase in our lives someday, and when we do, I will run-not-walk straight to this recipe.

CREAM OF WILD MUSHROOM SOUP
2006, Barefoot Contessa at Home, All Rights Reserved

5 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms
5 ounces fresh portobello mushrooms
5 ounces fresh cremini (or porcini) mushrooms
1 tablespoon good olive oil
1/4 pound (1 stick) plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, divided
1 cup chopped yellow onion
1 carrot, chopped
1 sprig fresh thyme plus 1 teaspoon minced thyme leaves, divided
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts (2 leeks)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup half-and-half
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

Clean the mushrooms by wiping them with a dry paper towel. Don't wash them! Separate the stems, trim off any bad parts, and coarsely chop the stems. Slice the mushroom caps 1/4-inch thick and, if there are big, cut them into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.
To make the stock, heat the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large pot. Add the chopped mushroom stems, the onion, carrot, the sprig of thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and cook over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add 6 cups water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Strain, reserving the liquid. You should have about 4 1/2 cups of stock. If not, add some water.

Meanwhile, in another large pot, heat the remaining 1/4 pound of butter and add the leeks. Cook over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until the leeks begin to brown. Add the sliced mushroom caps and cook for 10 minutes, or until they are browned and tender. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the white wine and stir for another minute, scraping the bottom of the pot. Add the mushroom stock, minced thyme leaves, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the half-and-half, cream, and parsley, season with salt and pepper, to taste, and heat through but do not boil. Serve hot.