Hello!  Sorry it's been a bit.  If you are a reader, you're probably looking at me reproachfully like the Guilford Farm cats, Oliver and Katie:

(they did get some food).

What can I say?  It's been a busy month.  The part of teaching all of Organic Chemistry I from August 21-September 11 was especially busy.  But I've got a few things in my phone to share, and a giant backlog of hot peppers and okra I need to do something with.  But for today, let's talk about watermelon.  I made this a few weeks ago, but now I have another watermelon in this week's CSA so I'll be making it again soon.

I've cooked a lot from Vivian Howard's Deep Run Roots, which makes sense, since her book is organized around produce in North Carolina.  This recipe looks crazy, but I promise (just like like Vivian does) that it tastes great!   The recipe for Country Style Pork Ribs in Red Curry Braised Watermelon calls for "pork shoulder or blade steaks" which are just sliced up pork shoulder or "Boston Butt".  I have no idea why they are called "country style ribs" but it's good to know that's what those are, especially if you have a recipe that calls for 2-3 lbs of pork shoulder and the only pork shoulders you can find are the 6-10 lb behemoths at the grocery store.  This is easy to put together and delicious served over rice.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 4 8-ounce pork shoulder or blade steaks
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 3 tablespoons red curry paste
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 5 cups watermelon, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes, seeds removed

First you need a watermelon:

Once you've got the rind off, chunk it up so you've got about 5 cups

Heat up the oil in a enameled cast iron dutch oven, and brown the ribs you've seasoned with salt and pepper:

Dump the watermelon on top, and add the rest of the ingredients that you've whisked together

Slap on the lid, slide it into a 350° oven and braise for 1 1/2 hours.  Then remove the lid and let it cook for 30 min more.  Serve over rice to soak up the broth.

Plated up with a little of Thai basil garnish:

Thai Basil Pesto

So, while I'm on a pesto roll, I've got two huge Thai basil plants in my garden.  Thai basil has a great, anise-y smell that makes you crave a trip to Rearn Thai or similar.  This recipe is an oldie but a goodie - I haven't made it in awhile, but those plants were begging me to do something!  This recipe is from my friend Marlene, rockstar geologist and co-creator and coordinator of the Sustainable Food Systems major at Guilford College.  If you don't have overgrown Thai basil in your yard, it's easy to find at international markets like Super G.

Thai Basil Pesto
Ingredients

• 1.5 cups Thai basil leaves, packed
• 0.5 cups cilantro leaves, whole (get this at Super G too, so cheap!)
• 0.5 cups peanut butter
• 1 tbs fresh ginger root, grated
• 3 cloves garlic coarsely chopped (from the CSA!)
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tsp chili garlic paste, more to taste (I subbed a habañero from the CSA basket)
• 3 tbs lime juice

Directions
Put all the ingredients in a food processor, whiz it until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides if necessary.

This is good on noodles, grilled salmon or shrimp.  I've also made a pizza with it, using this pesto as the base and adding shrimp and mozzarella but I haven't made that in a long time!  Need to change that.

Some pics!

All the ingredients in the food processor (I doubled the recipe)

Started out with only 1/2 habanero, added the other half after tasting for heat...proceed cautiously!

Ready for the freezer!

Microgreens Pesto

The past few weeks we've been getting "microgreens" in the CSA basket.  I think they are radish sprouts?  Anyway,they are very peppery, a bit too peppery for me to eat on their own.  I thought they might make a good substitution for arugula in this  this arugula pesto recipe, which I've been making for awhile.  We really liked it on what we call a "salad pizza" and I"m sure it'd be good on grilled meat or fish as well.  The main change I made besides using the microgreens instead of arugula was to use pistachios instead of the pine nuts I usually use.  You can by a bag of them at Costco and they're good for snacks and salads, and work very nicely in this pesto.

Microgreens Pistachio Pesto (adapted from Arugula Pesto from Serious Eats)

Ingredients

1 cup packed microgreens
2 tbs shelled pistachio nuts (roasted and salted)
1/2 oz freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 medium garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 tsp lemon juice
2 1/2  tbs olive oil (a little more if you think it needs it)
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions
 
Place all the ingredients except olive oil, salt and pepper in a food processor, and pulse until finely chopped, scraping down the bowl with a spatula as required. While the processor is running, add olive oil slowly to form a smooth paste.  Add additional olive oil if you like your pesto a little more loose.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Can be frozen - I either use an ice cube tray or freeze it in 1/4 cup amounts in snack sized ziploc bags that I press flat and put in a quart freezer bag. The 1/4 amount is just right for a pizza.

This is easy to double if you've got an overabundance of greens.

Esquites!

Hello, new readers!  (And hello to Stacey, Ara and Erin who I know have been reading for awhile!)  This week Nick and Will put the URL for this blog in the CSA note we get each week, so I thought I might have a few folks drop by to check it out.  If you're new here, I hope you find something useful to you.  I started this blog during summer 2019 because I thought it might be fun to track what I did with every single item in each weeks' CSA box, but that got to be a little much (really, you don't need to see every salad I eat).  What it has been good for, though is a place for me to keep track of new recipes I make with items from the CSA that I think are worth repeating and that others might be interested in.  Having that record helps me remember what I've made that turned out well, and also provides a good place to make a note of any changes I've made or pitfalls I ran into.

This past week I made esquites, which is a Mexican corn salad.  Even if we're not growing it at the Guilford College Farm, I do love corn season, and I could eat it on the cob every day.  Last week I had a version of this at a my friend Marlene's house and she rightfully pointed out that it was a lot easier to handle if you're serving a lot of folks than corn on the cob.  Or, I realized, if you're eating dinner on the sofa while watching TV (by the way, go check out Derry Girls on Netflix, it's hilarious!).

I found this recipe for esquites by Kenji Lopez-Alt on Serious Eats and adapted it a bit.

Ingredients

• 3 cups fresh corn kernels (about 4-5 ears, I used bicolor corn from Rudd Farm at the Curb Market)
• 1 tbs vegetable oil
• Kosher salt
• 2 tbs low fat mayonaise (Hellmans)
• 2 oz Cotija cheese, grated 
• 1/4 cup chopped chives (I didn't have scallions!)
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• 1 jalepeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped <----THERE it is, the lone CSA ingredient!
• 1 clove garlic, grated on a Microplane (oh, wait, that's from the CSA too)
• 1 tbs fresh lime juice
•  sprinkle of chili powder to taste

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet of dutch oven (I used the latter) over high  heat.   Add corn kernels, season w/ salt to taste, and stir and toss occasionally (about 3-4 minutes) until corn is cooked and hopefully some of it is lightly browned.  Transfer to a large bowl. 
2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the corn and stir to combine.  Adjust seasoning to taste.

Some pics!

Taking the corn off the cob (the bundt pan does a great job of holding the cob steady and catching the corn).

Mixing it up

Plated up w/ a BLT made with tomatoes from the CSA,  Marlene's homemade sourdough and our homemade bacon!

A nice change of pace from corn on the cob.

Enchiladas Verdes w/ homemade salsa verde

Last week we got tomatillos in the box, and I've had jalapeños from the last two boxes, so it was time to make some salsa verde and enchiladas verdes.

The Enchiladas Verdes recipe is adapted from a Cooking Light recipe from 1999.  It's also great w/ leftover rotisserie chicken and a jar of your favorite tomatillo salsa instead making your own.  It's easy to put together ahead of time, and makes good leftovers.

The salsa base is from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen, and I've written about another tomatillo salsa from the same book here.  This is a simmered sauce, and one he recommends for enchiladas.  I made a double batch and froze half for enchiladas later (because I might have still had tomatillos from last week's CSA box).

Essential Simmered Tomatillo-Serrano Sauce (CSA ingredients are marked w/ an *)


*1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed
*Fresh serrano chiles to taste (3, 1/2 oz total - I ended up subbing two of the jalepeños from the CSA, they weighed about 1 oz and I took the seeds out of one of them after roasting.
1 tbs olive oil
1 medium yellow onion (6 oz) roughly chopped
*2 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cups chicken stock (you could probably sub water here to make it vegetarian, but we're making chicken enchiladas so...)
1/3 cup roughly chopped cilantro.

1.  Lay the tomatillos and chiles on a baking sheet and broil about 4" from the broiler for about 5 minutes a side.  The tomatillos and chiles should start to soften and blacken.  Transfer the vegetables and any accumulated juices to a blender or food processor.

2.  Heat 1/2 tbs of the olive oil in a 5 qt dutch oven over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until deep golden, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook and stir a minute longer.  Scrape the mixture into the blender or food processor. If your using a blender, take out the "stopper" in the cover and cover loosely w/ a kitchen towel while blending to prevent a massive cleanup of your kitchen becoming necessary.  Pulse the whatever your using a few times to reduce the vegetables to a rough puree.

3. Add 1/2 tbs of oil to the pot and heat over medium high.  When it's hot enough to sizzle when a drop of puree is placed in it, pour all of the puree in and stir constantly for 4 or 5 minutes.   The sauce base will reduce and become thicker and darker.  Stirr in the broth, return to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and simmer briskly until thick enough to coat the back of spoon, about 10 minutes.  Stir in cilantro and season to taste w/ salt.

Some pics!
The vegetables ready for their tan:

In the blender:

The "rough puree"

Final product, ready to go in the fridge to wait for enchilada assembly:

Enchiladas Verdes Adapted from Cooking Light

1. 12 oz shredded cooked chicken (I usually use white meat, but whatever you like)
2. 2 oz shredded asiago or asadero cheese (you could also substitute mexican shredded cheese blend if you can't find those)
3. 1/3 cup finely chopped onion 
4. 1/3 cup finely chopped cilantro
5. 1/3 cup chicken broth (If I'm fancy and have planned ahead, homemade, butI will use bullion here, or Better than Bullion) 
6. 1/3 cup low fat sour cream or greek yogurt
7. 1 tbs fresh lime juice
8. 1/2 tsp ground cumin
9. 1/4 tsp salt
10. 1/8 tsp black pepper
11. 8-10 small corn tortillas
12. 2 cups tomatillo salsa (a jar is fine if you don't want to mess with homemade, Harris Teeter has a good one)
13. 1 oz shredded asiago or asadero cheese

• Mix together the first 10 ingredients to make the filling.
• Spray a 9"x13" baking dish with cooking spray,  and pour 1/2 cup salsa in the bottom and tilt to coast the bottom of the dish.
• Heat each tortilla in a skillet or on a comal (I heat mine over a gas flame to get a little char), place the tortilla on a small plate, and scoop 1/3 cup filling down the middle of the tortilla, roll up and place seam side down.  Repeat w/ remaining tortillas until you run out of filling.
• Pour remaining salsa over enchiladas.  
• Sprinkle w/ remaining 1 oz cheese, cover w/ foil and bake at 400°F until thoroughly heated, about 20-30 minutes.

Some pics!
All the ingredients for the filling (some of the red onion from the CSA here!)

 Salsa in the dish

First enchilada off the assembly line

All enchilada-ed!

Time for dinner

Homemade Bacon (who knew?)

My friend Marlene emailed me a couple of weeks ago w/ a link to this NY Times article (along with several others) asking "...want to try homemade bacon?"   I had several pork bellies in the freezer because of Marlene (she thought they were ribs from Ofuskee Farm, but they were bellies) and she also had pork bellies from PTB Farms (who I've mentioned before).  We each made up our own cure, riffing off of the NY Times recipe (I left out the coriander, thyme and fennel because they didn't seem like very "baconlike" ingredients to me) and several others from around the web.  Here's what I used:

Cure:

• 2.5 Tbs kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
• 1/2 tsp pink salt (note: this is not himalayan pink salt!  It's pink salt w/ sodium nitrite for curing meats!)
• 2 Tbs maple syrup
• 2 Tbs honey
• 2 Tbs cold black coffee
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed (CSA ingredient, so it's legit to have bacon on the blog)
• 1 Tbs black peppercorns, crushed (put them in a ziploc and hit 'em w/ a meat mallet a few times)
• 2-2.5 lbs pork belly (I had 3 tiny bellies, ranging in size about 10-12 oz) 

 Instructions:

1. Place the pork bellies in a Ziploc bag.
2. Mix together the dry cure ingredients, add to bag
3. Add wet cure ingredients, close the bag
4. Massage the bag to coat the bellies with the cure ingredients as best you can
5. Press most of the air out of the bag and place bag in fridge
6. Flip the bag over and massage the cure into the meat 1x day for 7 days
7. After 7 days, remove the bellies from the bag, and rinse the cure off of the meat.  Pat dry with paper towels, and place on a rack in the fridge to dry for 6-24 hours.
8. Since my bellies were so small, I rolled and tied them at this point
9. Smoke over applewood at 200-225°F for 1.5-2 hours until internal temperature is 150°F

Some before pics:
Ready to go into the smoker

Coming out of the smoker (we also had probe thermometers in two of the bellies while smoking so we knew when to pull them).

mmm...bacon

You could slice and eat it just like this, but we pan fried a few slices and then put some on parchment and stuck it in a 400°F oven to bake 8-12 minutes, keeping an eye on it and flipping it about every 3-5 minutes. 

Forgot to take an after pic.  Combined with Marlene's homemade sourdough sandwich bread, these gorgeous tomatoes from the CSA and some smoked corn mayonnaise from Deep Run Roots, it made some damn fine BLT's.  (which would also be damn fine w/ some Hellman's or Duke's and any good white sandwich bread).

What to do with eggplant? Pasta Sauce!

So last year we were inundated with eggplant. I think there was a research project that the farm was doing w/ NC A&T.  This year it's not been so much, but still, the eggplant and tomatoes are in full force right now.  I've definitely figured out a few things to do w/ eggplant which you can find if  you click the "eggplant" label over there -->

But I wanted to try something new, so I searched "eggplant" on https://smittenkitchen.com, and Deb, per usual did not disappoint.  She had many recipes for eggplant, but this recipe for Rigatoni and Eggplant Puree really got my attention, since I had eggplant AND a pint of cherry tomatoes in this weeks (and last week's) CSA.

I made it pretty much as described.  The only big difference was that I only made 6 oz of  pasta (it was just the two of us) and used half the sauce it made, and I only used  4 tbs of oilve oil instead of 6.  I also added 6 of these Turkey Meatballs from Trader Joes, thawed and cut into quarters.  The puree is definitely not photo-worthy, but it was pretty tasty overall!
Some pics!
The ingredients! (full disclosure, the eggplants were from last week)

Getting the roasted veg into the food processor:

This was a little tricky b/c the Al foil I'd put on the baking sheet had a hole and the juices from the veg had welded the foil to the sheet.  It all worked out.

Mixing up the sauce with the rigatoni.  Needed 2-3 scoops of pasta water to loosen it up.

Plated up with a little parm and basil garnish...
Oh, and Rudy was jealous b/c Dudley got featured in the last post, so here he is:

Panzanella

There are a million recipes for this bread and tomato salad, and here's how I do it:

Serving size 1, multiply as needed
Ingredients

• 1-2 good tomatoes, chopped
• salt and pepper 
• 1-1/2 clove garlic, grated or pressed
• good handful fresh basil leaves, chiffonade
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 tsp balsamic or red wine vinegar
• 1-2 thick slices (1-1.5 oz) of good bread, cubed and toasted
• olive oil cooking spray
• 2-3 oz fresh mozzarella, cubed
• 1-2 tsp toasted pine nuts 
• optional: grated parmesan

Directions:

• Put chopped tomatoes and their juices in a bowl, add garlic, and salt and pepper to taste.  Add olive oil and vinegar.  Let sit a few minutes to draw out more juice from the tomatoes.
• Cube the bread, spread on baking sheet, spray lightly with olive oil and toast in toaster oven until golden brown.  Let cool.  
• Add mozzarella and basil to tomato mixture.
• Add toasted bread to tomato mixture, tossing until the bread soaks up all the juices
• Garnish with pine nuts and parmesan (if you remember, I did not in the bowl pictured below)
• eat! 

Chicken Soba Salad

This Chicken Soba Salad is adapted from this recipe published  in Cooking Light in May 2004.  It's a nice dinner on a hot summer night.  From the CSA I used some carrots, purple cabbage and red onion.  If you've got cooked chicken on hand, it comes together pretty quickly!

Ingredients

• 8 oz shredded cooked chicken breast (see note).
• 1 tbs rice vinegar
• 1 tbs toasted sesame oil
• 2 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs mirin
• 1 tsp siracha or chili-garlic paste
• 2 cups of a mixture of grated carrot, shredded cabbage or broccoli slaw (see notes)
• 1/3 cup minced red onion
• 1/4-1/2 cup chopped thai basil (can also use italian)
• 1 tbs chopped mint (optional)
• 2 cups cooked soba noodles (one 4 oz bundle)
• 1 tbs chopped dry roasted peanuts
• lime wedges (optional)

Instructions:
Whisk together the dressing ingredients (rice vinegar through siracha), pour over shredded chicken and toss to coat.  Let stand at least 5 minutes.

Add the carrot/cabbage slaw mixture, red onion, basil and mint to the chicken, toss to mix.

Cook the soba noodles according to package directions, drain and rinse with cold water.  Toss with the chicken and vegetable mixture.  Divide between two bowls, sprinkle with peanuts, garnish with lime wedges if desired and serve

 Notes:
The original recipe called for poached chicken breast, but I've used grilled chicken or leftover rotisserie chicken.  Now I use sous vide chicken breast I cooked at 150°F for 2 hours.

I will use a mixture of carrots and cabbage (more cabbage than carrots) or a bag of broccoli slaw.

Some pictures!
The cabbage and shredded carrot ready to go in:

All the veggies tossed together:

Time for dinner!

Dudley is exhausted from begging for chicken:

Slow roasted tomatoes

As I think I've mentioned, we're overrun with tomatoes right now, including a couple of pints of mixed cherry tomatoes:

Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen has this recipe for Slow Roasted Tomatoes, which is as delicious as it is simple. It takes 3 hours, but it's hands-off and perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon while you Netflix and chill:

Deb's pictures are way more gorgeous than mine will ever be, but here's what they looked like coming out of my oven (I subbed a Silpat for the parchment paper.:

Serving suggestions:
1.  Stand in front of the stove and eat them directly off the baking sheet.

(not pictured)

2.  Smash on some toast you rubbed with the roasted garlic, top with fresh mozzarella and basil.

I'm sure you can think of other things to do with them...

Grilled veggie sandwiches

A lot of produce to use up this week!  A huge zuchinni from last week, and the eggplant is starting up again, along with the bell peppers.  Plus we got a good bunch of basil (not to mention the plants in my yard going crazy) and the red onions are starting to pile up.  Time to grill some veggies!  Slice up whatever veggies you like about 1/4" thick or a little less, spray or brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Grill on a HOT grill about 3-4 min per side.  One exception, for peppers, slice into planks and grill the skin side until blackened and charred a bit, transfer to a bowl, cover tightly with foil and let cool.  Once cooled, peel the skins off.  After all that you get a nice looking collection of veggies:

Get yourself some nice crusty rolls (I used some square ciabatta rolls from Lowes), slice in half, then spray or brush with olive oil and toast.  Spread the bottom half with some basil pesto (2-3 tsp). Pile on whatever and however many of the veggies you like (eggplant, peppers and onions are my fav), then top with sliced fresh mozzarella and run it under the broiler until the cheese is good and melty.  Spread the top half of the roll with some basil pesto (2-3 tsp), smash on top of the sandwich and eat!  In retrospect it might be good to sprinkle the roasted vegetables with some balsamic vinegar as well.

Here's the pesto recipe I use, it's an old Cooking Light recipe from September '95, I can't find it online and they killed my favorite magazine so I reproduce it without guilt here:
Basil Pesto (makes about 1 cup)
2 tbs pine nuts
2 large garlic cloves
3 cups packed fresh basil leaves
2 tbs grated parmesan cheese
2 tsp lemon juice
3 tbs olive oil

If you can do it w/o burning them, toast the pine nuts in a dry pan.  If you're like me and you've burned them and you just want to get the damn recipe done and have dinner,  substitute untoasted, they'll be fine.  You can also try other nuts - I want to check out pistachios some day.  Anyhow, once you've resolved whatever nut crisis you might be having, fling them and the rest of the ingredients into some kind of food processor and process until it's a smooth paste.  Keeps a few days in the fridge and can be frozen (ice cube trays work great!).

Tomato, corn and avocado salad

So, I might have mentioned we've got a thousand tomatoes?  Also, this weekend I might have enthusiastically overbought the first corn of the season (for me anyway), and I had half an avocado kicking around so here you are. 

A pile of cherry tomatoes, some corn, some red onion (also from the CSA!), cilantro, olive oil and lime juice and it's a very nice salad.  Add some chicken chunks and it's a very nice lunch.  Here's the recipe.

Note I did not grill the corn, but used some leftover boiled corn from this weekend.  Still very nice.

Pan con Tomate

We are in high tomato season here at the CSA.  This week's box had a pint of cherry tomatoes and 2 pounds of regular tomatoes.  And, since I also have a friend's CSA because she is out of town, that means I've got 4 pounds of tomatoes!

Obviously that means that there are BLT's, fresh tomato pasta and gazpacho in my future.  I also used one of the tomatoes to make a quick snack that I learned about in Spain, Pan con Tomate.  I think this is supposed to be a tapa, but every morning at the hotel breakfast in Spain there was a bowl of tomato pulp so you could have it for breakfast.  I used this recipe, more or less as written (but with just one tomato and a few slices of bread since it was just me), and forgot to take pics.  One change I made: I used Italian bread from Cheesecakes by Alex (I've explained how good bread comes from a cheesecake place here). 

There's a lot of arguments in the comments about how to make the dish and who it belongs to (it's Catalonian, not Spanish), but I think you can put it together however you want, just make sure you've got great:

• Bread
• Tomatoes
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Garlic 

This week's CSA box and a melon smoothie

I think we're at week 7 or 8?  I've been traveling and last week's box went to my friend Sarah.  We've moved from the onslaught of greens to more summer veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers.   Here's the lineup from this week's box:

• 2 lbs purple potatoes
• 2 lbs tomatoes (one GIANT Cherokee Purple and a slicing tomato)
• 1 small green cabbage
• 3/4 lbs collard greens
• 4 red onions
• 1/2 lb radishes
• galia melon
• 1 lb zuchinni (one tiny, one enormous)
• 2 cucumbers

So far....

• I've already roasted the potatoes (wash well, cube up, toss w/ 1 tbs olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary and roast at 400°F for about 30-45 min). 
• I sauteed the one of the tiny red onion and the tiny zuchinni (both chopped) and added a little bit of chorizo (< 1 oz) and an egg to make a breakfast taco filling.
• I used one of the cucumbers to make a chicken salad: peeled chopped cucumber, 4 oz leftover chopped chicken, 3 tbs greek yogurt, 1 tbs mayo, 1 tbs chopped fresh tarragon, salt and pepper.  Could have used some lemon juice or some other acid.
• The other cucumber and the tomato went into this gazpacho.

 The galia melon (like a honeydew) I already had peeled and cut up into chunks, and I may put some of those into one of these melon smoothies my friend Ara sent me the picture of and recipe for:

To quote "Very easy to make with cut up melons, ice, and agave in the ninja."  I'm hoping that my non-ninja blender will be able to handle it!  Also I'm assuming the Ranier cherry on top is optional (I love them, I just don't have any!).

Gazpacho!

So last week I had the great privilege to go to Spain with Atlantis Global to learn more about their medical shadowing program for pre-health students.  Short story is that it's awesome and I'll be taking a group of Guilford students to Teruel, Spain to do medical shadowing in the Spring 2020 3-week session.  While I was there, I ate some amazing food, including a couple of delicious bowls of gazpacho.  Which was especially delicious given that the temperature was pushing 100°+ while I was there:

Coming back, I was determined to make this silky smooth, deliciously cool soup.  Turning to the internet for recipes, I found that there are approximately Avogadro's Number of different possible ways to make this soup.  😳  Quickly abandoning the chunky versions (which I'm sure are great, but not what I wanted) as well as Kenji Lopez-Alt's version that required you to freeze all the vegetables and then some other stuff (I just got overwhelmed).  Even his "easy version" seemed too complicated, and also had 1 cup of olive oil in the ingredients!  Eventually I settled on the recipe from Bon Appetit, and I think it came out pretty well!

First line up your ingredients (tomatoes and cucumbers from this weeks' CSA, including the gianormous Cherokee Purple on the far right that weighed in at 1.25 lbs)

Peeled seeded and chopped the cucumber, cored and chopped the tomatoes (no peeling!), chopped the red bell pepper and shallot and tossed them all in a bowl and grated in the garlic clove.  Season w/ salt and pepper and add sherry vinegar:

Stir it all up:

And let is sit for 30 minutes:

Put all that in a blender along w/ 3 tbs of olive oil and let it rip at "medium" (my blender doesn't have a medium setting so I picked the middle button which said "mix").  Then put the mixture through a coarse sieve into a bowl (this was kind of a pain, but worth it -gets rid of peels and leftover seeds- and you get about 4.5 cups of this:

Let it sit overnight in the fridge to chill, and it is delicious.  You're supposed to serve it w/ chopped tomato, cucumber and a drizzle of olive oil but I haven't gotten to that part yet.  One of our hosts from Atlantis Global, Alexandra said she loves gazpacho but never makes it because they sell it in the grocery store and it's delicious.  I wish we had that here, but for now I can use this as a way to deal with the onslaught of tomatoes and cucumbers that are coming!