Over the weekend, my husband and I were in cleaning mode. For our foster son, that meant a Magic School Bus marathon (it’s a holiday weekend, after all). For me that meant clearing out the fridge.

As the last few weeks of summer are upon us, I am trying to squeeze out every last bit of “summerness” before school starts, the rain starts, and the weather turns colder.  So as I considered what to do with a hodgepodge of vegetables that I had from last week’s and this week’s CSA boxes (which included a plethora of sweet gypsy peppers), I decided to make a quick gazpacho. It turned out great!

Here are the steps. Note that you can make this with your own “hodgepodge.” Some things I was out of, but would make a great addition/substitution, include carrots, celery, spinach, and beets.

Ingredients I Used (because it’s what I had available): tomatoes, sweet gypsy peppers, green onions, and green beans.

I also used some sun-dried tomatoes and garlic I had in the fridge. Note that if you don’t have sun-dried tomatoes, you can just add a bit of salt and pepper to season it. You can also add oregano, basil, or other seasonings you like. I would have preferred sun-dried tomatoes that were not in oil and fresh garlic, but this is what I had available, so this is what I used:

For equipment, I used my small (4-cup) Cuisanart Mini-Prep Plus, but any food processor or blender would work.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Trim, de-seed and roughly chop peppers, green onions, and green beans. (Most of the prep time is spent on getting the veggies ready.)

Chop the peppers in the food processor. Then add onions and beans and blend some more.

 

Add tomatoes and chop. (I could not fit all the tomatoes—just add as much as you can.)

If you can get all of your ingredients in at the same time, you can skip this step. But I needed to transfer contents to a bowl.

Chop remaining tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes (to taste—I used about 1/4 cup), and garlic (to taste—I used 1 teaspoon). 

Transfer contents of bowl back into food processor and blend well. The more you blend, air is released and the contents shrink.

That’s it! You now have about 4 cups of delicious cold soup to enjoy. The flavor is a party in your mouth — and a great way to get plenty of good, fresh veggies into your body.