One More Mask

Summer's here! Summer solstice will reach our part of the world at 2:43 p.m. today, and we are so ready. We have a couple of dinners planned with family already, and a couple of camping trips to see us through the season. Now we're outfitted with masks, and we're ready to get on board.

Most of the day was spent in the kitchen yesterday. We knew it was going to be a warm day, and our plan was to eat our dinner outside. So I made up some gazpacho. This is my own recipe, and it is so good. I missed the beautiful tomatoes from our farmers, which was what motivated me to start making this dish a couple of summers ago. It was still delicious even with grocery store tomatoes. If I get brave enough to head out to a farmer's market when tomato season arrives, I might make it again...or maybe I'll just use some of our romas when they ripen. (That was a very optimistic position to take, don't you think?)

As for the gazpacho, a couple of years ago, I copycatted some we'd had in a restaurant beginning with a recipe from Chef John. After making it several times, I've added, subtracted, and messed around with it until it tastes just the way we like it. I'll give you the recipe in just a second, but first, feast your eyes:

This might have been the first time I put all of the components together. At some point I tried a recipe for some "green gazpacho," and that had the crab component. It was delicious, but the green gazpacho wasn't as good as the red one I'd been making. It made sense to combine the crab with the red gazpacho for the version we had last night. 

It was such a lovely warm evening with no wind, and we really enjoyed relaxing outside to finish off our day.

If gazpacho is new to you, here's a little blurb from Wikipedia about it's origin:

"There are many theories as to the origin of gazpacho, including one that says it is a soup of bread, olive oil, water, vinegar and garlic that arrived in Spain with the Romans. Once in Spain, it became a part of Andalusian cuisine, particularly in Córdoba, Seville, and Granada, the Moorish Al-Andalus regions; using stale bread, garlic, olive oil, salt, and vinegar, similar to ajoblanco. During the 19th century, red gazpacho was created when tomatoes were added to the ingredients. This version spread internationally, and remains commonly known.

There are many modern variations of gazpacho with avocados, cucumbers, parsley, strawberries, watermelon, grapes, meat stock, seafood, and other ingredients instead of tomatoes and bread."

So here's how I make it. I should say this recipe has some kick, so if you're sensitive that way, you might want to use only half the jalapeno and half the Tabasco. And you could leave out the cayenne altogether. The way you see it here, it's not so spicy it'll knock your head off, but you might want to start small and increase the hot stuff after you've tried it.

Gazpacho with Dungeness Crab

Serves 4

Ingredients: 

4 large fresh tomatoes, peeled and diced

1/2 English cucumber, peeled and finely diced

1/2 cup diced green bell pepper

1/4 cup minced green onion

1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

pinch cayenne, or to taste

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 pint cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 lime, juiced

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

salt and ground black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons cilantro

2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil

6 oz. cooked Dungeness crabmeat, picked over

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

croutons, optional

Directions:

1. Combine diced tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, green onion, jalapeno, and garlic in a large bowl. Stir in salt, cumin, oregano, Tabasco, cayenne, and black pepper.

2. Place cherry tomatoes, olive oil, lime juice, balsamic vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Cover and puree until smooth. Pour pureed mixture through a strainer into the tomato-cucumber mixture; stir to combine.

3. Place 1/3 of the combined tomato mixture into the food processor or blender. Cover, and puree until smooth. Return pureed mixture to the remaining tomato-cucumber mixture. Stir to combine. Cover and chill in refrigerator for 3-4 hours.

4. Place crabmeat, oil, cilantro and basil in a bowl; stir gently. Divide gazpacho evenly among 4 bowls; top with crabmeat mixture and croutons, if desired.

* * * * *

You can make this easier on yourself by gently pulsing all the vegetables in step one in a food processor. Just be careful not to puree them. The crab salad adds a nice touch to the soup, but you could leave it out. I've used canned crab, which is cheaper than fresh, but last night I sprung for the fresh stuff, and it was so worth it. Also, I like to make the Penzeys Sandwich Sprinkle Croutons, and they were a nice addition to this dish. I cut up the heels of bread and the ends of baguettes and keep a supply in my freezer. When I want croutons, it's a quick job to make them. You can see how I do it at that link I've given you. You can find the Sandwich Sprinkle right here. When I wrote that post, I hadn't yet started sprinkling the garlic powder on, but that's how I do it now. Just spray, sprinkle, sprinkle, bake. Easy.

For dessert, I made this Blueberry Cobbler for Two. It was my first time making it, and this is definitely a keeper.

It required a baking dish with a 3-cup capacity, and this little Pyrex baking dish worked out perfectly. I purchased them in order to freeze little single dish meals for camping trips. I liked this recipe because it doesn't use a lot of sugar. It's mostly fruit with a cornmeal biscuit topping. Pretty simple and quick to make. We had it for dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We might have had two scoops.

 

The only sewing I did yesterday was to make the promised mask for Matthew. Matthew chose two batiks for his mask. On one side, I used this petroglyph batik I picked up at a quilt shop in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this mask that can be reversible. You can find the link to the tutorial right here. Flipping it to the other side, Matthew chose this batik I picked up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, many years ago. 

Okay, and I mentioned the Stargazer Lily was close to opening. Imagine my disappointment when I checked it yesterday to find the largest flower bud and a few of the smaller ones had been eaten off by a deer. 

Last seen there were still a few buds left, and so I'm hoping we might get some flowers from it. If it isn't one thing, it's another. 

Smitty gave us a little scare yesterday. He caught his morning squirrel, and then we didn't see him again for hours. A squirrel snack always makes him want to take a nap, and we have an idea he went off under a bush somewhere and slept it off. When he finally reappeared, he was looking pretty sleepy eyed. He came inside and continued on with his nap on the tummy-cooling top of our china cabinet.

It wasn't so warm yesterday, but quite humid. We were all sweating with even the smallest amount of activity. It was a good day to stay in the basement sewing room, but I spent most of my time in the kitchen.

Today we're expecting some rain, but only for today. Summer should be back tomorrow. I'll get back to my quilt-making today. City Bank has been waiting long enough.