I can't be doing with cucumber. Or it can't be doing with me. We have a standoff which includes me gloomily skipping most chopped salad options and peeling cucumber out of boring catering sandwiches to the disgust of whoever I'm chatting with at the lunchtime buffet (...oh wait. None of that happens now. I'd forgotten). As dietary issues go, it's minimal. But it does mean I'm a bit unable to gazpach.
But! I have a recipe in a Tommi Miers book (Home, vg), which does a strawberry and tomato gazpacho with only relatively little cucumber. So I tried missing it out, and it really worked.
You need: ground almonds or breadcrumbs for a bit of base (60g or so). Loads of strawberries, loads of plum tomatoes. A couple of garlic cloves. A bunch of basil. Some vinegar (I'm still using white balsamic, should be sherry really). Plenty of seasoning. Whizz it all up and chill it down.
It's really easy, of course. Not beautiful, but quick. And it's tasty. I used bread, as I reckoned the flavours would be stronger without the boring cuke, and it balanced pretty well. Chilling it meant the bread swelled so it's a gazpacho/pappa al pomodoro crossover really.
Did my best with presentation. Tomorrow, I reckon a blob of decent real balsamic as well as a splash of oil on top with the strawberries. It's really chunky stuff, and filling, considering it's a load of pulverised fruit.
I'm having invented white wine sangria for #ConfinedCocktails at 7. See some of you there, I hope, especially after this cracking week of posting in the blog. It's pouring with rain here, but we said garden photos would be fun, if you fancy sharing.
There's a recipe for strawberry gazpacho in my Andalucia book which features no cucumber at all! That said, it does contain a red pepper, which I think is another of your bete noires...
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