gazpacho

You are currently browsing articles tagged 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.

watermelon

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

watermelon gazpacho

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

peeled ginger

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?

pepper and watermelon

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.

watermelon gazpacho

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

watermelon gazpacho

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!

Tags: cold soup, Cold Soup Week, gazpacho, soup, watermelon

I know, I know. It’s autumn, and I should have moved on to everything pumpkin and squash, but I am loving heirloom tomatoes as long as I can get them! This week I bought quite the local summer veggie haul, and with the weather being in the 80’s, I couldn’t really help but take advantage of it. I am up and running again, building my base for the 2011 Boston Marathon, and I simply needed to make one of my favorite warm-weather dishes, gazpacho.

I started with 3 large heirloom tomatoes, 3 cloves of garlic, a small yellow onion, a yellow pepper, and a cucumber.

gazpacho ingredients

I couldn’t find any ripe peaches, so I cheated and used 2 peaches from a jar of Trader Joe’s peach halves, quite delicious, especially chopped up in oatmeal.

 

Trader Joe's peaches gazpacho ingredients

 

yellow pepper

To make the gazpacho, I chopped all of the above ingredients and tossed them in the food processer with 6 ice cubes, a cup of cold water, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, and a few dashes of hot sauce.

tomato peach gazpacho

The combination of peaches with the other ingredients is delicious and one I first had at Union a few weeks ago. I am ready for fall, but I will savor as long as I possibly can!

Now for the gripes! One of my favorite blogs is Melissa Nibbles, and I love her “Three Things Thursday” where she has a little venting session on things that are annoying her. While I tend to be a happy and positive person overall, there are certain things that just KILL me, and so I decided to take a page from Melissa’s book (er. . .  blog) and let it all out there. If you haven’t read her blog, definitely do, she is hilarious and delightfully real.

1) People who get on an escalator, stand in the middle, and hold on to both sides. . . then stay there. Why do we even have escalators? I am pretty sure most healthy Americans could stand to walk up or down a flight of stairs once in awhile. I find myself out and about during lunch, in a huge rush, and constantly stuck behind people who don’t get the “stand on the right, walk on the left” system that is a given in Europe. Haven’t we gotten the escalator memo?

2) Littering/not picking up after your dog – I see a LOT of this in my neighborhood and once had a neighbor who shared our backyard and didn’t pick up after her dog. This behavior makes you a gross human being. Period.

3) Adults who ride bikes on the sidewalk – bikes are vehicles, and if you are over the age of 16, you should be in the road, following the rules of the road, not riding up the back of my ankle on Comm Ave.

I love interactive posts. . . so tell us, what are you griping about?

Tags: gazpacho, healthy, recipe, soup, vegetables

As I write this post, I am contentedly full from a delicious dinner at Union Bar and Grille in Boston’s South End. A day of wandering the North End in the heat and wishing I owned the dogs in the South End dog park, we found relief from this late summer heat in Union’s cool, comfortable dining room.

Union Boston

We have been to Union’s bar a few times, once to eat brunch, and a few other times for drinks, but never for dinner. They have a great wine list and are one of the restaurants in Boston that has ventured outside of the traditional wine regions of the world to offer Austrian Gruner Veltliner, a huge plus in my opinion. They also offer reasonably priced wine by the glass from places like Washington, New Zealand, and Argentina.

Since we had never eaten in the dining room, it was a nice surprise to be seated in the very comfortable black banquette lit by some great natural light. The decor is dark, cool, and sleek, very comfortable but really chic.

Union Boston

We were greeted by the restaurant’s manager, Justin, seated, and given a complimentary glass of bubbly to mark the end of Boston Restaurant Week. It was a very nice touch 🙂

champagne

Fresh, hot cornbread preceded our meals, and while I decided to save room for my three course dinner, my husband thought it was perfect, especially with some creamy, lightly salted butter.

cornbread

For my wine, I decided on the Neapolitan flight which started with a glass of Graham Beck Brut Rosé. As you may know from other posts (wine tasting at Morton’s, Vino Voyage, and my friend’s graduation dinner). Graham Beck unfortunately recently passed away, but his delicious wine certainly lives on and gives us reason to celebrate.

My first course was a fresh, light, and summery soup, Chilled local peach and golden tomato gazpacho, that took advantage of the best local produce at the moment, tomatoes and peaches. I don’t know why I never thought to pair tomatoes and peaches before (but Chef Robin White does in an incredible salad) but it is a magical pairing, the sweetness of ripe peaches accentuating the sweetness and slight acidity of the tomatoes. It was the perfect starter for such a hot evening. The only thing that I personally would have left out was the drizzle of oil on top; it was a little distracting. Otherwise, I could and would eat bowl after bowl of this gazpacho.

peach tomato gazpacho

My second wine was a Sauvignon Blanc from Groth Vineyards in the Napa Valley. It ended up being the perfect choice to pair with the spice of my entree

Oven roasted cape bluefish
with spicy watermelon pickle charred sweet onions,
grilled summer corn and basmati rice pilaf

The spicy watermelon was just luscious and unexpected, complementing the meaty bluefish well. I even enjoyed the sweet summer corn and rice, and I am not usually a fan of rice. Everyone finds it strange that I don’t like rice, but I really rarely enjoy it. Last night was one of those nights.

bluefish

The Restaurant Week menu included a dessert course, and we were completely spoiled for dessert as we were brought out the house special, a maple bread pudding, in addition to the desserts we ordered:

Raspberry spiked chocolate brownies
with pistachio ice cream

Bread and butter pudding
with roasted peaches and vanilla bean ice cream

That’s a lot of dessert for two people! But we managed, with two glasses of Port, to put quite a dent in them, each delicious and decadent in their own way. Justin was completely correct when he said that the maple bread pudding was life changing, and I can see it being a big time autumn craving.

trio of desserts

Union is a great neighborhood restaurant for just about any meal or casual snacks at the bar, which I find to be one of my favorite bar settings in Boston. They provided us with above and beyond hospitality, and we will definitely return. Thanks so much, Justin!

So, it’s Monday again and a pretty busy week leading up to our holiday weekend in the Berkshires. . . and a fall season for lots of travel and fun events. I can’t wait, but it’s also a little bit daunting. One day at a time I guess!

Even though we work until 2:00 on Friday, I am telling myself it is a short week. Ask me again on Thursday how I feel about that!

It was a quiet weekend on the blog traffic front, so in case you missed them, don’t forget to check out summer farmers market roundup, a wine tasting at home, and another cod recipe. Also, I am in the process of updating the Sites I love page. More to come!

Did you eat anything particularly delicious this weekend?

Union Bar and Grille on Urbanspoon

Tags: Boston, Dining out, dinner, Food, gazpacho, restaurant, Union, wine

« Older entries

new restaurant
WordPress SEO fine-tune by Meta SEO Pack from Poradnik Webmastera