Gazpacho- A Great Summer Soup

If you haven't heard, it gets a little hot in Florida. This tends to mean when we do soup and salad, there is a bunch of soup leftover and the two of us arguing over who gets the last bit of salad. To remedy this, I decided to try making Gazpacho-a cold soup. I always put cold soups in a category of too difficult than regular soup but as I started to make it, I realized I had been psyching myself out.... this was way easier than regular soup. I adapted this from Real Simple magazine and true to their name, it was real simple.

Ingredients:

• 2 pound ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 1 bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 small red onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 cucumber, 3/4 coarsely chopped and 1/4 finally chopped
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon Salt and 1/2 teaspoon Pepper

Using a blender, puree all the veggies (except the finely chopped cukes) together. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the rest of the ingredients. Refrigerate for at least 1/2 hr, top with rest of the cucumber. Enjoy!

Notes: Can you say easiest recipe ever?? If you want a dark red soup, use a red bell pepper. I used the veggies that I had left over from other recipes so mine is a little yellow due to a yellow bell pepper. I don't think it really changes the taste though.