Gazpacho

I love good tomatoes. It's hard to get good tomatoes where I grew up in Washington state, but, fortunately, you can get some great tomatoes in Boston. It was a hot day, and the first batch of heirloom tomatoes had just arrived at the store, so I decided to make gazpacho with seared scallops for dinner. Here's the finished product.

The recipe comes from a Bobby Flay cookbook. It includes all of the veggies pictured above, diced really small. Use only half of the onion, and put half of the tomatoes and one cucumber in a blender with 6 slices of good white bread and a couple of cups of tomato juice. Add the diced vegetables to the puree along with olive oil (a couple tablespoons), red wine vinegar (~1/4 cup), lime juice (2 limes), and salt and pepper to taste. I thought that this recipe was a bit heavy on the onions, so I would do one of two things next time: use half the amount of onions or soak the onions to take the bite out. Soaking the onions involves changing the water and squeezing moisture out of the onions about every 10 minutes. I also would have pureed more of the vegetables since I like a smoother gazpacho.
I served the Gazpacho with a Kim Crawford sauvignon blanc, which is a really great summer wine. Here's Andre, getting ready to dig in.