Tomato Love Summer Soup

Given my absurdly successful experiences with starting tomato plants from seed, I am never able to complain of too many tomatoes, but, wow!, there are a lot of them coming ripe at once.

With three pounds of blanched and peeled tomatoes on hand, a take on the classic gazpacho cold tomato soup was easy to accomplish. I still had another two pounds for making pasta sauce, and that's not even counting the endless cherry tomatoes.

This is a refreshing soup with a little crunch. If you prefer really smooth, just keep the blender running longer. If you make a lot of this, you can keep it in a pitcher in the fridge and just pour out some when you need a quick, cool hit of yummy tomato bliss. The addition of red pepper, classic cucumber, and tangy celery gives it a more complex flavor, as does the onion and garlic. Since I'm not a big fan of raw onion or garlic, I sautéed and cooled mine before I adding them to the soup (absolutely not classic!), but you can go with uncooked if you prefer...and it will be faster.

Almost Classic Gazpacho
Serves 4-6

1/2 yellow or white onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil (if cooking the onion and garlic)
3 pounds fresh tomatoes, peeled
1 cup diced cucumber, peeled if skin is thick
1 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced red pepper
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil, if cooking, until onion is translucent and garlic light brown. Set aside to cool. If not cooking onion and garlic mix them and set aside.

In a blender, combine cooked or uncooked onion mixture, tomatoes, cucumber, celery, red pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil. Pulse until mixture is of the desired consistency. I like mine a bit chunky, but it can be smooth. If necessary, process in one or two batches. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste.

Turn into a non-reactive bowl or pitcher and chill thoroughly, at least one hour.

To serve, put portions in either glasses or bowls. If desired, garnish with red pepper and/or cucumber cut into a fine dice. Crisp croutons are also a nice garnish. Serve at once while fully chilled.

More Black Beans

So you get a phone call from a friend who is looking for a dish for a luncheon and it has to be something that a non-cook can make. It would be nice if it is also vegan and not too expensive. Even better would be something that doesn’t need to be re-heated or even refrigerated. Oh, yes, can it also be delicious?

If you get that kind of phone call I have just the thing for you. We served it to our scholarship group yesterday and it was a hit! We had a four person committee and three of them were non-cooks, but they did a great job with this salad. Parkay made a great chairwoman! We served it on lettuce leaves accompanied by a gorgeous big strawberry that had been fanned out, plus fresh blueberries and some bakery rolls. Delish!

Black beans and corn work together here to make a complete protein, plus they taste great together and look colorful, too. Add tomatoes, red pepper and Italian parsley (the flat leaf kind), plus some red onion and you have a very jazzy looking salad. A red wine and olive oil based dressing ties it all together and a hint of cayenne makes it sing. Since it uses frozen corn and canned beans and tomatoes, the only cooking is some chopping of peppers, onions and parsley.

Even if you are a proficient cook, this is a great meal to have in your repertoire, especially if you keep some of the ingredients on hand. You can pull it together at a moment’s notice when you have unexpected guests or are just too tired to do ‘real’ cooking. Just remember, the best reason to make this salad is that it tastes great!

Black Bean, Corn and Tomato Salad

1 (16 oz.) bag frozen corn, thawed
½ - 1 cup fresh tomatoes, diced, plus any juices that collect (you can remove the skin and seeds or not, as you prefer) OR 1 (14 to 15 oz ) can diced tomatoes and their juice
½ cup red pepper, cored and diced
½ medium red onion, diced
½ cup fresh parsley, finely minced – flat leaf gives a stronger flavor than curly leaf
1 14 to 15 oz ) can black beans, rinsed and drained
Dressing
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
(OR ½ cup red wine vinegar and NO balsamic vinegar)
½ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (or more to taste)

Place thawed corn, tomatoes, diced pepper, red onion, parsley and beans into a bowl.

Shake the dressing ingredients together in a small jar with tightly fitting lid. Pour dressing over salad and stir to mix ingredients thoroughly.

Cover salad and chill for at least an hour and up to 12 hours until thoroughly chilled.

Serves 6-8.

Note: Sometimes you can find frozen corn that has red pepper bits already in it. If you do, you can skip dicing the fresh red pepper…just use the frozen corn with red peppers.