Kitchen (mis)Adventure: Octopus Toast

I had a truly decadent and wonderful dinner at home Sunday night, and it was made all the better -- because I'm a lazy person -- due to the fact that I basically didn't have to do any cooking whatsoever. 

I mean, toasting toast and puréeing vegetables don't actually count as cooking, do they?

I've been hoarding two cans of imported (Spanish) baby octopus, packed in olive oil, that I bought at the Westside New Leaf in Santa Cruz a couple of months ago. They cost me millions of dollars (not really, but you know what I mean), and I've been waiting for a special occasion to crack them open. Well, Sunday evening rolled around, Jason was out,* and I decided that that night was the night (I only opened one can though, I'm a hoarder after all).

I made myself a nice batch of basic gazpacho, and toasted two pieces of bread. I slathered one in hummus and left the other one plain for the bowl of baby octopus I prepared with magic parsley from the St. John's Eve herb garden and lots of lemon juice. EXQUISITE. 

Kitchen (mis)Adventure success! I enjoyed it all before a lovely Skype date with Sarah T, after which I instantaneously crashed out while watching the opening credits to an old episode of Bones on Hulu. JUST ANOTHER PERFECT SUNDAY EVENING.

***

* Jason loathes, loathes, loathes seafood, which I find disappointing and am trying to slowly remedy. We're still working on tuna and (small) shrimp, so I knew that octopus would be way too much way too soon. ALL THE MORE FOR MEEEE. 

Kitchen (mis)Adventure: Magical Basil Gazpacho

Here it is, my first batch of magical basil gazpacho. OH YEAH. I decided to err on the side of caution this go around, and only made half the quantity of gazpacho as last time. It took me over a week to drink the whole pitcher, after all.  You may or may not be able to tell that I puréed the crap out of it in hopes that the smoother texture would be more pleasing to Jason, but alas, I just don't think he's much of a fan of the idea of cold soups.*

Apart from the magical midsummer basil (both Genovese and spicy Cuban), I gazpacho'd with what I had on hand: sweet baby bell peppers, jarred fire-roasted red pepper, a yellow onion (if I could, I would have used a red onion, a la Sarah T), garlic, Roma tomatoes, and an enormous cucumber (I only used half). I threw in a generous handful of toasted almonds for a little protein, something my mother does because she's a genius, and blended away with slightly less sherry vinegar and olive oil than last time and double the water. Tasty.

I think the gazpacho turned out great. But as I drank it, I suddenly had a craving for cheese. Fresh mozzarella cheese. IT TASTED JUST A LITTLE TOO MUCH LIKE CAPRESE SALAD WHAT HAVE I DONE.


Summer: caprese salads, gazpacho, soda water (yes, I made some after finally potting my magical herbs and feeding the citrus trees this morning), postcards, and the list goes on.

* Speaking of cold soups, TheKitchn highlighted a Mark Bittman New York Times article on cold soup recipes and they look really, really super. Check out the recipes here. 

Typical Espanish: Gazpachooo

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Claudia, for sending me this fabulous video Sunday. I've listened to it over and over and over. You've ensured that this innocent gazpacho kick explode into a full-blown gazpacho obsession. It's all I can think about, and now, it's all I hear. I sing the song's refrain in my dreams. Jason is living a nightmare.

La Ogra presents her summer hit: "Gazpacho".* It's a year old, but it's new to me, and it's become my summer anthem. Here's to the summer of gazpacho!

As soon as I've finished this first batch (I'm so close), I'm going to make a new, decidedly smaller, batch using some of that fancy Cuban Basil I got on St. John's Eve. Magical, basil gazpacho? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!!!

* Did I buy the single on iTunes? You bet I did.

Kitchen (mis)Adventure: Spicy Gazpacho

It's really hot here. Like, so hot that I'm completely useless. Yesterday was up in the 90's, today should be too, and we should be seeing high 80's/low 90's through the rest of the week. Looks like it's going to be a long, hot, and dry summer.

Here's a nice photo of my current laptop workspace in the living room, taken from my seat.
Observe piles of books and papers and knittings. 

In a fit of rage, I made 5 million gallons of gazpacho this morning. I just went whole hog with the Osterizer, making one batch and then two, using up as many veggies as I could. As you can see in the photo above, I pulled out my copy of Teresa Barrenechea's The Cuisines of Spain: Exploring Regional Home Cooking when I started, but only used it to cross reference Sarah T's* tried-and-true gazpacho recipe. Barrenechea tends to over-do it with the olive oil in my opinion, so I generally use her recipes as a starting reference. Here's something interesting: neither Sarah T. nor Barrenechea had any onion in their gazpacho recipes! I know! They only included garlic. Correction: Barrenechea doesn't have any onion in her recipe, only garlic, but Sarah T does include a whole red onion in hers! I've set the record straight! (6/25/2012) I put both into mine (and plenty of it). Because I'm a crazy person, apparently. I like my gazpacho spicy! (I may have also added too liberal a splash [SLOSH] of vinegar... burp.)

I'm drinking a tall glassful of it right now. Jason is so repulsed by the gazpacho that he can't even watch me drink it. I poured him a tiny amount in our little Garfield mug, but I don't think he'll be able to drink it all... Nope, he just gagged trying to get the first mouthful down. MORE FOR MEEEE!!!

* Check out Sarah T's super travel blog, Someday on the Avenue, here. I especially love her latest post on the old operating theater she visited recently. Creepy, gothic, Victoriana, yessss.