Gazpacho

This recipe is super easy (as long as you have a blender/food processor), doesn't actually involve any cooking, uses up stale bread and tastes surprisingly delicious! It is based on a recipe I saw on River Cottage during their vegetarian season (on Channel4 for all you UK people). I made it much simpler by not caring about skinning and deseeding the tomatoes. If you want to do this I would suggest visiting the River Cottage website to see how Hugh does it. I also make my own croutons. He cheats.

 Gazpacho

3 thick slices stale white bread (around 100g), crusts removed*

200ml cold water

1 garlic clove, crushed

1.5 kg large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced

1 red capsicum/pepper, deseeded and chopped

½ small red onion, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil for soup + 1 tbsp olive oil for toasting croutons

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper

shredded basil or chopped flat-leaf parsley

Take 2 of the bread slices and tear into pieces. Put the bread into a bowl with the crushed garlic and water. Leave to soak for 10 minutes.

Put the soaked bread and garlic, tomatoes, half the cucumber, red pepper, onion, olive oil, vinegar and sugar in a food processor (it should just fit). Process to a coarse purée and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and chill for 2–3 hours, then taste and adjust the seasoning.

Cut the final slice of bread into small squares. Brush the front and back with the oil and grill for a couple of minutes on each side to make croutons.

Serve the gazpacho topped with the croutons, shredded basil/parsley and the other half of the cucumber, chopped.

*I kept the crusts on for one of them (for my croutons) because they gave extra crunch.