Watermelon Gazpacho

The dog days of summer, or something like that? As we traveled around Boston via the water on Saturday and early Sunday, the humidity and heat made me crave cold food, watermelon, tomatoes, gazpacho, and sandwiches, anything but heat. Sunday’s rain made it cool off considerably, but I was still in the mood for cold soup. That’s because for many weeks, I had been looking forward to Chef Robin White’s virtual dining event, Cold Soup Week.

In addition to being one of the lucky, in-person attendees at her Venge Wine Dinner, I also participated in Robin’s Soup Week last fall and had fun cooking and tweeting, and once I saw the recipes for Cold Soup Week, I knew I had to fit it in.

The soup I made was a variation on the Grilled Watermelon Soup with Feta Garnish. I fully intended on grilling my watermelon, but I just forgot.

I started with a juicy, sweet organic watermelon. Look how cute it is!

I gathered my other gazpacho ingredients, including a red pepper, ginger, small sweet onion, lemon, jalapeno, English cucumber (not pictured), and honey.

I prepped all of the ingredients, peeling the ginger, juicing the lemon, and breaking down the watermelon, a task that I really dislike doing! The juicier the watermelon, the better, except when you are cutting and getting it everywhere. Or is that just me?

To make the gazpacho, I pureed the firmer ingredients first, then added them to chunks of sweet watermelon mixed with a bit of pineapple juice in the blender. Once the soup was smooth enough, I put it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to enjoy when it was perfectly chilled.

Adding a crumbled feta garnish was the perfect topping; if you’ve ever had watermelon feta salad, you know what I mean.

The flavors in this soup were bold, and each bite was a nice surprise, sweet, spicy (I may have added extra jalapeno!), juicy, and then salty with the feta. It is a great, summery option and would be perfect in place of regular gazpacho, especially for someone who doesn’t like tomatoes.

Thanks to Robin for hosting Cold Soup Week. I can’t wait to see what her next virtual event is!