I’m not going to type this up as a traditional recipe with exact quantities as, well, it’s up to you to use the quantities and specific veggies that you like. I’ll give you guidelines and techniques, experiment from there!
For ingredients you’ll need 4-ish pounds of really good homegrown or farmer’s market tomatoes, cut into rough chunks, a cucumber or two, peeled, seeded, and chunked, a red onion peeled and chunked, a red pepper (or, if you’re one of those people, a green one) roughly chopped, a jalapeño (again, rough chopped, seeded or not depending on how spicy you like it – it’s always good to taste jalapeños as their spiciness can vary greatly), a couple of cloves of garlic, 4-6 ounces of good bread cut into 1-inch or so pieces, olive oil, sherry or red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper.
Get a big bowl and start layering your ingredients – first tomatoes with a generous sprinkle of salt, pepper, and olive oil, then bread, then more veggies (with more S&P and oil), then tomatoes, then bread, etc. The goal is to “macerate” (fancy cooking term) the veggies and get them to release liquid to soften the bread and to allow the flavors to mingle. Get everything in the goal – see the first picture for what it will look like – and then set it aside, covered, for 45 minutes to an hour (until the bread is softened).
It’s now time to puree this all up. Get your blender out (if you want blender recommendations reach out and we’ll talk…think Vitamix) and add the veggie mixture to it in batches, blend on high speed until very very smooth – at least a minute per batch. As you do this add vinegar, more olive oil, and salt & pepper to taste – you want it to taste well balanced, not too salty or sour…you’ll know when you get it. Keep doing this until the soup is all blended.
Serve very cold and garnished as you like – toasted bread, chopped veggies, avocado, olive oil, and S&P.
Enjoy and let me know how yours turns out!
