GOLDEN GAZPACHO

Welp, I meant to do a daily post chronicling my raw cleanse but I got a new job with very long hours and got off track! Oh well, sometimes life gets in the way. I often surround myself with perfectionists but am not one myself. Very often I can’t hep but stop and think how grateful I am to NOT be one. What a waste of time and anguish! I like my imperfections and find that I tend to be a much happier person on average than my perfectionist friends, although that might be because I’m driving them crazy with my ways of doing things, haha.

So I did keep up my cleanse for a total of 3 days, not too shabby I guess. And as a general rule going forward, I like to subscribe to the ‘raw ’til 4pm’ concept. Not that I particularly follow the fruit centered, high carb, low fat principle, but I do like the simple concept of eating 2 raw meals a day.

We had a lovely taco party last night for my family, we made Cuban black beans, guacamole, and all the usual fixings, and I made this Golden Gazpacho as an appetizer. We also set up a huge screen and projector in our backyard and watched movies. We have spent the last month trying to beatify our backyard and turn it into an awesome wonderland. In addition to the 103″ ‘swim-up’ movie theatre, we turned our once-grass dirt patch into a container vegetable garden, complete with string lights and a fire pit. We planted herbs, corn, watermelon, zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin, butternut squash, tomatoes, peppers, marigolds, eggplant, onions and lettuces! We also installed a drip system so we use much less water than normal watering methods. I can’t wait till something produces a crop so I can make some fancy homegrown recipes to share with you.

I have never actually had gazpacho before, the idea of cold soup did not interest me, but as I was cooking in the hot kitchen yesterday it started to sound like a pretty good idea. The sweeter the corn you can find, the better.

Golden Gazpacho

Makes 8 servings

3 ears of corn + 1 for garnish

2 gigantic heirloom yellow tomatoes

1 cucumber, peeled

1 serrano pepper, deseeded

1 yellow bell pepper, deseeded

3 tbs coconut sugar or raw brown sugar

1 tbs salt or to taste

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 yellow onion

10 cloves of garlic

black pepper to taste

1/2 tsp paprika

1 avocado, diced for garnish

1 bunch chives, diced for garnish

Combine everything but the garnish items in a high speed blender and blend until smooth- this took mine 5-10 minutes, a pretty long time!

Taste and adjust seasoning as you see fit.

Store in a big bowl in the fridge for about an hour so it chills and the flavors mingle.

To serve, ladle into individual bowls and garnish with raw corn kernals, avocado slices, and a sprinkling of chopped chives.