Barefoot Blogger: Gazpacho

I decided to make the gazpacho yesterday since I had the day off and I could make it and let it cool for several hours. And I have to say I'm torn on the recipe. I loved the flavor (even though I brilliantly halved every ingridient except the garlic. Oops.) but it felt lacking. I think if I had thought to add some protein with it it would be perfect. Either grilled shrimp or chicken would be great. Instead I just served it with a garlic breadstick (yeah, vampires beware).

(What is too processed?)

Gazpacho

• 1 hothouse cucumber, halved and seeded, but not peeled
• 2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded
• 4 plum tomatoes
• 1 red onion
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 23 ounces tomato juice (3 cups)
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Roughly chop the cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and red onions into 1-inch cubes. Put each vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do not overprocess!

After each vegetable is processed, combine them in a large bowl and add the garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well and chill before serving. The longer gazpacho sits, the more the flavors develop.

My first Barefoot Blogger post!!!

Since I joined mid-month I decided to give the Bonus Recipe a go (I do love extra credit). And to add to it it totally goes with my ingredient of the week.

Cranberry Orange SconesI actually halved this recipe, mostly cause I went to the pantry and only had 2 cups of flour. But even halved the recipe turns out ten nice size scones, which is plenty for just me and Shannon. I also only glazed half of them since Shannon doesn't like her breakfast things to be very sweet. I personally prefer them with the glaze.

I really wish I had read other people's comments about the orange taste not being very strong before I had made them. I'm also used to my scones being a bit more dense. These sort of have the consistency of the bisquick biscuits my mom used to make with dinner.

That being said, we'll certainly be polishing off the rest of them.

Ingredient of the Week: Orange

Orange crusted chicken with blackberry sauce

We chose to keep it fairly simple to start. We paired it with some leftover potato salad from burger night last week.

For the blackberry sauce I took about a half cup of blackberries and threw them in a sauce pan with 3/4 cup marsala and about 2 tablespoons of honey.


Then Shannon made a very simple breading with flour and orange zest. She then pan-fried it.

It turned out really good. I'm kind of in love with the sauce. I wish I had saved some to put over our peach frozen yogurt later.