classic gazpacho – guest post

Todays post is a guest blog-post from Katrina Brink with the recipe for a classic gazpacho.

Sometimes blogging is a pretty lonesome space, especially when you are starting out and do not have a team around you, yet…! So I was very happy when a few weeks ago a friend here in Denver introduced me to Katrina Brink, a food lover and blogger at The Empowered Kitchen. Katrina is teaching cooking classes in person in the Denver Metro area and online to empower you in the kitchen. When we met for the first time, we had so much to shared about our love for mindful and seasonal cooking and gardening. So I had the idea to invited Katrina for a guest blog-post at Handful and a Pinch.

You might remember that some weeks ago, I posted a recipe for cucumber gazpacho with the abundance of my porch garden. Since Katrina has an abundance of tomatoes and carrots in her garden, she decided to share her recipe for the classic gazpacho and her love for gardening with you. I am sure you will enjoy this guest blog-post with Katrina as I did.

mindfully yours

Magdalena

For the Love of Kitchen Gardening

By Katrina Brink

Where to start. I love my garden. Gardening brings me joy, peace and a sense that nothing else matters in that moment except the tomato in front of me that, through an unlikely turn of events, managed to grow. The miracle of life and earth still leaves me in wonder and disbelief. It’s hard to understand how these beautiful fruits, vegetables and leaves spring forth from such tiny seeds, and provide so much nourishment to our bodies and beauty for our eyes. Plants bring such life and sublimity to the earth. Are we around, present and aware enough to appreciate it?

I’m trying to be. Taking a moment to appreciate the work of the earth and the human hands that helped bring it to life is essential. This year my housemate installed a drip irrigation system. Praise you, Anneli! If you have the time and means to do so, I HIGHLY recommend it. This has allowed us to enjoy the fun parts of gardening so much more this summer, as we don’t have to worry about who watered, or forgot to water, the garden. It’s also a great water saver for arid climates, like here in Colorado. Even if you live in an area with an abundance of water, it’s always helpful to conserve resources because pumping water around town is highly energy intensive. Making the best use of our resources is always better than having to go find more.

Slowing down

No matter how busy or rushed I am, I always take a moment to brush my fingers along the sage or rosemary and breathe in their scent completely. It’s the best form of aroma therapy and makes me appreciate the forethought and care that went into bringing this garden to life.

Gardening makes me slow down and I lose all track of time because I’m surrounded by outside air and sunshine, or clouds, with perpetual dark half circles under my finger nails and the unique smell of tomato vines clinging to my arms. This year has been especially good for our beets and beans. I have more parsley and basil than I know what to do with. Now the tomatoes are coming in force. It feels amazing to walk outside and be greeted by food growing and ready to be harvested. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of pulling a whole carrot out of the soft soil. It’s something I can’t explain, but I’ll never forget how awestruck I was as a 6 year old child, when I watched my neighbor’s dad pull a carrot out of the ground. What I would give to see that look on my face. This was my first realization that food came from the earth and not the grocery store or the refrigerator.

To see what Mother Earth has so lovingly crafted is to be deeply appreciated. Growing even some of your own food makes you value every piece of produce you see at the farmer’s market or grocery store so much more. You see each piece as unique and important because you planted it as a seed and carefully tended it while it grew. You’re so much more likely to make sure that beautiful food goes to good use, rather than languishing in your produce drawer, or sitting out on the counter for just a little too long.

Summer abundance in the kitchen

It’s when I carry an armload of fresh, dirty produce in from the garden and pour it out onto the countertop that I become inspired to cook. So much potential is sitting in those vegetables, waiting to gently be released.

The raw freshness and intense flavor of vegetables from your own garden makes cooking easy. You only need to whisper on the ingredients. Sometimes doing as little as possible to them is the best thing you can do. It does them the best justice. To let their natural flavor come through is what you want. Drizzling a high quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil on sliced tomatoes with a bit of sea salt and cracked pepper is one of the most respectful ways to treat a tomato. If you’re looking for a main dish, it’s simple to make an earthy grain and top it with raw, roasted or steamed vegetables. When combined with a sauce, it becomes a complete and soul-satisfying meal.

Knowing how to treat the ingredients is the key. Let the heat, water and salt do the work to just the right degree. The grains or lettuce will act as a canvass for the depth of flavor and texture of the vegetables and sauces complete the dish.

With high quality, fresh ingredients, the cook really just needs to let the taste shine through. Sometimes very little real skill is required to do this, yet sometimes it takes the right touch with the pan, oil, water or steam. But this skill can be acquired with time, practice and a little patience and grace with yourself and with the ingredients.

Gardens are teachers. They teach us the patience of sowing something, letting it grow and waiting. Sometimes the wait can feel long and like the harvest might never come. Then sometimes the abundance comes quickly and can feel overwhelming. Like, what on earth am I going to do with all of this spinach, these beans, these tomatoes? Until you become a master of succession planting, which let’s face it, you can’t master a garden. You better get comfortable with ways to capture the bounty when it’s ready…whether or not you are. There are many ways to make the most of the bumper crop of whatever you might find yourself facing.

Preserving the harvest

You can blanche and freeze many garden greens and vegetables. It’s a great way to preserve them for the fall and early winter, when you’ll be so grateful to have fresh greens or beans from your garden. If you’re sick of them now, you really don’t have to eat them all now. And enjoying them later means you won’t take them for granted but really appreciate them.

Think about learning how to can (aka: preserve) your excess too. Yes, canning takes some work and can be exhausting (I’ve been there at midnight), but you can also make a party out of it. Have friends over, get your canning supplies out, bring all the goods…veggies there are…and share the spoils at the end. It goes faster with more people, and there’s plenty of down time to hang out and enjoy the evening together. Plus you have a lot to show for it in the end, and you’ll thank yourself later. Here’s a good link to get you started with canning. I’ll be writing my own post in the near future. Once you have the supplies, it really does save you money to put up a bunch of homegrown foods over the summer and fall. However canning doesn’t just have to be for gardeners. Some folks don’t have the time or physical space to garden.

Something I love to do is get flats or boxes of “seconds” at the farmer’s market. Right now there are screaming deals on local, organic peaches and you bet your peach I’m taking advantage of that. 😉 Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Make the most of your food by cooking with a plan

Of course you can also just make sure you cook up as much of that good food as possible when it’s ready. Think through creative ways to use eggplant in several recipes, zucchini have so many uses, and parsley and other fresh herbs brighten up almost any dish you can imagine. Those herbs also give you a great nutrition boost and often compliment the nutritional composition of the other foods.

Here are a couple of fun, plant-based ways to brighten up your cooking life and try some new recipes that can also help you minimize food waste. These recipes highlight veggies and herbs that are at the height of their season right now in Colorado and many other places around the United States. If we all use our food to the fullest we can keep it out of landfills, where it creates methane emissions and becomes a significant source of this greenhouse gas.

Imperfection

I’m not always perfect with making sure I get into the garden at the right time to plant, weed or harvest. I definitely haven’t always consistent meal prepped, but it’s developing as a habit that inherently changes over time as life changes. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about making a sincere effort and being aware of our impacts. If we all do our part, the results will begin to change the way our culture views food and we’ll all make the most of each beautiful ingredient we use to cook.

Onwards.

As always, in service in the kitchen.

Katrina Brink

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classic gazpacho

this classic gazpacho is refreshing and perfect for hot summer days and to savor the abundance of your tomato harvest during the last hot late summer days.

Course cold soup

Cuisine Spanish

Keyword classic gazpacho, cold classic gazpacho, cold soup, cold tomato and carrot soup, cold tomato soup, tomato gazpacho

Prep Time 25 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Servings 6 cups

Author Katrina Brink from The Empowered Kitchen

Ingredients

• ½ cucumber English or regular
• ½ red bell pepper
• ¼ medium red onion
• ½ cup water
• 2 cups stale bread cubes
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 lime
• 4 large tomatoes
• ½ - 1 jalapeño
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• ¼ teaspoon oregano
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne
• freshly cracked black pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon tamari or Worcestershire Sauce optional

Optional Garnish

• fresh basil parsley or cilantro

Instructions

1. Peel and dice the cucumber, cut and de-seed the bell pepper and tomatoes and cut about ¼ cup diced red onion. Save the rest of the cucumber and red pepper to use as a snack for dipping this week. Store extra in sealed containers in the fridge. The rest of the onion can be saved for another recipe. Cube the stale bread and soak in the 1/2 cup of water. Add more water if needed to fully soak bread.

2. Carefully remove the seeds from the jalapeño and mince as much of it as you would like to use, according to your spice tolerance. Start with ¼ of the pepper and you can add more if you’d like after you blend everything together and taste.
3. Set aside about ⅓ of each of the diced bell pepper, onion, cucumber and tomato. Once the bread has soaked, you will squeeze the water out and discard the water. Place soaked bread in blender.
4. Juice lime into a blender or food processor. Place all of the rest of the ingredients to blender. If using the tamari or Worcestershire, leave out the salt when you blend everything. After the soup is blended to the consistency you like, you can add the diced vegetables. This will give your soup some crunch and more interesting texture. Taste the soup after blended. If needed add more salt, pepper or any other ingredient that you feel is lacking. It’s about making it to your tastes.
5. This soup is eaten chilled, so chill for at least 2 hours before serving. The flavors will develop and it will only taste better after more time in the fridge, so it’s great to prepare ahead of time for a party. You can garnish with rough chopped cilantro, parsley or basil.

Recipe Notes

The Empowered Kitchen Tips: If you need a way to use up cilantro or parsley stems, you can put a few of them in the soup when you blend it together. The gazpacho will last for about a week in the fridge.

If you want to freeze it, you should blend all the ingredients 100% instead of leaving some diced vegetables in it. They won’t freeze well and will have a poor texture when thawed. Just blend all the ingredients, seal, label and date. It will last well in the freezer for up to three months.