A little food post: Gazpacho and a Tomato Tart

One of Scott's favorite foods is gazpacho.  He always hounds me each summer until I make it at least once.  I finally obliged after I got my hands on some really good tomatoes from a girlfriend's garden and cucumbers from the farmer's market.  The only ingredient I was missing was the water from grandma's canned tomatoes, so I had to use tomato juice--which makes it saltier, but it was still good.  The tomato tart was a Paula Deen recipe that I cheaped down--no manchego cheese, no fresh herbs etc b/c I didn't have any and I didn't want to go to the store.  The result was tasty, but a bit too dense for the crust b/c I used grate parmesan instead of a shredded cheese.  Next time I'm going to try it with shredded parmesan since it's so much cheaper than manchego.

the bare beginnings--isn't it pretty!  tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow peppers (you can use any sweet pepper), vidalia onions (with a couple purple hidden in there)

 add a little garlic (well, a lot), hot sauce, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper (I should have omitted the salt since I used tomato juice--in my opinion)

all mixed up

now the tomato juice/water mixture is added (I watered it down b/c tomato juice is too thick and canned tasting)

then i take 2/3 of the veggies and blitz them in my food processor, and then I add it back to the rest of the unprocessed soup

last step: add bread crumbs.  I added more since it was saltier than normal--and I added a lot of garlic (oops). these were fresh bread crumbs, so they weren't salty at all--it was just 2 or 3 pieces of bread thrown in the food processor

the finished product--and one messy bowl on one messy counter

the beginnings of the crust before it was cooked. it has to be precooked and then you add the filling--mayo, parm, mozzarella, bread crumbs, herbs, and really soft cooked onions. then you layer it with tomatoes and a drizzle of olive oil and bake

the finished product...delicious! it would have been prettier if i'd had a variety of colors in the tomatoes, but taste was great.