Gazpacho

Its atrocious outside. All week its projected to be in mid 90s. Seriously, where is the blizzard (the one that forced me to focus on this blog) when you need it? But since no snow or cold is insight, the next best thing to cool off is a cold and refreshing meal. So today's idea was gazpacho - I conveniently had all of the necessary ingredients. This will take about 15 minutes to prep, but then it needs to chill for an hour or so, just enough time to get in a run before the storms come!

Ingredients:

• red tomatoes (3 large, diced)
• cucumbers (2, diced)
• orange bell pepper (1, diced)
• green bell pepper (1, diced)
• jalapeno pepper (1 or a handful of slices from a jar, diced)
• minced garlic (1 tbsp)
• lime juice (1/3 cup)
• honey (3 tbsp)
• salt and pepper

This is the point where I promote one of my favorite gadgets, the Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender (pictured below). I used it, with the chopper attachment, to dice up all of the vegetables to save myself some time.

First up the peppers.

Add to a large mixing bowl. Then dice the tomatoes and add to the bowl.

Dice the cucumbers and add to the bowl.

Chop up the jalapeno slices.

Once all of the vegetables are in the bowl, add 3 tbsp of honey.

Add the lime juice. (Note that I used more than the 1/3 amount - I blame my inability to focus on Deadliest Catch - that show is sooo addicting!)

Use a food processor or the hand blender and process all of the ingredients until desired consistency. Some people prefer it chunky, others want it smooth. Its up to you!

Chill in the refrigerator for an hour. Ladle soup into bowls.

Gazpacho I think is normally more red, but I used more orange bell peppers and less tomato so mine turned out somewhat orange-ish. Either way, it was good. and healthy! And I bet if you ate this for a while, you'd lose crazy weight!