Liquid Salad?

The tomatoes are here, finally! Well, actually, they've been ready at the Palo Alto garden for some weeks now, but we don't get there as often as we'd like. We're going tomorrow so that we can load up because, although the tomatoes are in here in Marin, there are still only a few. It's not the cornucopia that we expected. In other words, it may take a bit longer for this garden venture to pencil out financially.

However, we do have a few Carbon heirloom tomatoes, which are blackish/purple and have won a taste taste between ten other heirloom varieties, yet that we have not seen in our stores. We save these for slicing with a touch of salt, freshly ground pepper and basil. The Snow White variety is coming on line and there's even a Cherokee Purple in a small container. But this small amount of tomatoes, however flavorful, cannot quench our need for soups and tomato tarts. We like to be sick of tomatoes by the end of the season so that we can last until the next tomato season with the canned and frozen ones that we stow away.

So the tomatoes that we gathered from Palo Alto have had to do for soups. We started to make Gazpacho Andaluz the other day, but realized that it was a bit to cool for this cold soup, so we switched gears and made a Cream of Tomato Soup from The New Best Recipe cookbook which is reproduced below with our changes:

Cream of Tomato Soup

• 2 28 oz cans whole tomatoes in juice, drained and juice reserved, seeded [we used a variety of fresh tomatoes which we skinned and seeded by putting it through our new food mill]
• 1 1/2 tsp dark brown sugar [because we did not roast the tomatoes, we did not add the sugar]
• 4 T butter
• 4 large shallots, minced
• 1 T tomato paste
• pinch allspice
• 2 T flour
• 1 3/4 c low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 c cream
• 2 T brandy (or dry sherry) [we used the brandy]

Roast tomatoes, sprinkled with sugar, at 450 for 30 minutes on parchement-lined pan. [again , we did not do this step]
Melt butter over medium heat, add shallots, allspice and tomato paste and cook, covered, at low for 7-10 minutes.
Add flour and stir for 30 seconds, then add broth, whisking constantly. Stir in reserved juice and roasted tomatoes. Cover, bring to boil over medium, then reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes.
Strain mixture into bowl, puree solid tomatoes with 1 c strained liquid until smooth. Return to saucepan with remaining strained liquid, add cream and warm over low heat 3 minutes, then remove from heat and add brandy, season with salt and cayenne to taste.

So even with our changes and substitutions, the soup was perfect for a cool end of summer night. We want to do a taste taste against Campbell's. Bring it, soup boy!
OK, now on to the liquid salad part. Today was considerably warmer at lunch time, so Jim went back to the Gazpacho Andaluz recipe. It is terrific! It may have peasant origins, but it is smooth and luxurious. It's not at all like the gazpacho that we've had before, which is merely a soupy salsa. You can use the link to check out the recipe, but the only thing that we did differently was to dust the finished soup in the bowl with cayenne pepper and use a combination of red and white wine vinegar in place of the sherry vinegar suggested. We will pick up some sherry vinegar on the way home from tomato gathering and do a comparison soup as soon as possible. We used hard-boiled eggs and green onion as the garnish, but cucumber and croutons should work very well the next time.
Yours in nightshades,
Jim and Peta