Brielle's Avalon

Fun serving suggestion

A cold tomato soup. This is NOT supposed to be spicy. If you want spicy, just open a bottle of salsa and eat it with a spoon. Everybody makes it a bit differently, but this is how I learned as a kid. It’s one of the few recipes I liked in Home-Ec.

Of course you have a garden, even if it’s a few pots of herbs on the balcony, porch or windowsill. Most of these ingredients may be growing in it, so shopping time is minimal. Home grown is always best, but gardens happen at their own pace, so get what you must form the store and continue.

You’ll need: a cucumber, a couple large tomatoes, a couple ribs of celery, a bell pepper, a few cloves of garlic, an onion, basil and a bottle of tomato juice. Lemon juice perks it up, too.

You all know what chopped veggies look like, so I’ll skip the individual pics.

Chop and toss veggies

Cut up 1 onion (I prefer yellow, but white or red will do if that’s what you have or like). Also cut up a rib or 2 of celery, a bell pepper, a couple of tomatoes, a cucumber and garlic. throw them all into a bowl as you finish each and toss.

Sprinkle on some basil, oregano (fresh or dried), salt and pepper. Cilantro is optional but I add it when it’s growing in the garden. Add lemon or lime juice to taste.

Add tomato juice

Next add a bottle of tomato juice. We used V-8 when I was a kid but there are many to choose from. *insert obligatory palm-to-head visual and “I could’a had a…”*

Whizz some of the soup

Mix it all well-in, then take about 1/3 and whizz it up in a blender. This thickens the soup-base. When it’s well blended pour it back into the bowl and stir well.

Add whizzed soup back into main

Pour into a nice serving bowl to serve at the table. A  pretty ladle is nice to have for this. Individual servings can be in rustic bowls, mugs or pretty stemware.

Garnish with croutons, parsley, cilantro, finely cut onion slivers, chopped green onion, grated cheese, chopped peppers, celery or cucumber. Since borage flowers taste like cucumber they’d be a really pretty garnish, too, if you happen to have them blooming in your garden.

You can grow most of the ingredients yourself it you’re so inclined. This is a great recipe to introduce kids to chopping safely as well as the joys of eating directly from the garden. It’s also wonderfully cool on a hot summer’s day and no need to heat the house with cooking.

It’s nice at brunch, lunch or dinner and if you’re so inclined I guess you could turn it into a cocktail after dinner with some vodka or tequila.