Category: Vegetables

Glorious Gazpachos

A cocktail of gazpachos

 

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For me gazpacho is summer in a glass and I make my Go To Tomato Gazpacho time and time again through the summer when tomatoes are sweet and juicy sometimes with yellow tomatoes to create a sunshine golden version and sometimes with red to be classic.  Gazpacho is a liquid salad so I am never very precise with quantities and adding bread is a personal preference – I like to as i like the creamier emulsified texture. I adore the very creamy Spanish “Salmorejo” which is a red tomato gazpacho with a higher amount of bread in it.  As the method is really only about blending its really all about the sweetest ripest ingredients and thats why going to the market yields the best results. Somehow the little cucumbers are sweeter, the onions stronger and the tomatoes richer in flavour.  Here you have a trio of new gazpacho recipes to try:

Avocado & Cucumber Gazpacho

Watermelon Gazpacho

Beetroot Gazpacho 

 

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Onion & Beer Confit

….because sometimes blonds do have more fun

Look at these white onions frolicking around with a happy hoppy blond beer, fronds of fresh thyme, a big dollop of butter and a dribble of honey.  For this is the basis of white onion and beer confit the paler perhaps more interesting cousin of red onion marmalade and definitely the fun one.   It is absolutely “the” relish to eat with a large slab of mountain cheese such as Gruyere, Emmental or the Carpathian “Trascau”, it makes quiches taste way better and it provides a magical base for an instant “pissaladière” …that gorgeous creation from the South of France that is sweet onions, anchovies and black olives on a bread or puff pastry base.  As if by magic here is one I made earlier…

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Slutty Salad #3 Smoked Salmon, Spinach & Avocado Dressing

Pink & green and all the colours that lie between

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This is a nifty little take on the classic salmon, avocado and spinach game.  Here we use the dreamy creamy Avocado Dressing to liven things up and create a salad plate in minutes proving that “have dressing will salad”.  Really this is the ultimate “slutty salad” requiring only baby spinach leaves, sweet little cherry tomatoes, a packet of smoked salmon and a dusting of pumpkin seeds. I just love salmon and avocado in any combination and here with the coriander and lime juice in the dressing it lifts it up with that lime cutting through the salmon. Just add a glass of rose for the perfect mid week dinner.

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