One of my favorite foods is a tomato. As a matter of fact, in the summer I eat so many of them that sometimes my lips and tongue get tiny blisters all over them and feel funny for days. I literally cannot help myself! If you are like me, you eat a tomato in any and every way possible. One of my favorite ways is gazpacho. This is such a versatile and easy dish that literally everyone can make it to their liking.
The reason my gazpacho recipe is cooking with compost, too, is because I was canning tomatoes this weekend and I used the left over skins and ends that I trimmed from my tomatoes to make my gazpacho with. Normally, most people would throw this out or compost it. But not me! I have squeezed every last bit of worth from those tomato scraps and then some 
Ingredients include: about a cup of V8, 2 cucumbers, 4 banana peppers, 1/2 of an onion, either two small chopped tomatoes or one large chopped tomato, and seasoning to taste including red wine vinegar, garlic powder or salt, crushed red pepper, green or red tobasco sauce, salt, pepper, olive oil and ground red pepper.
First I took all the tomato trimmings and placed them in my blender to puree. When the mixture is smooth and all lumps are gone, I used a mesh strainer to separate the fiber from the juice, shown below. If you don’t have a mesh strainer you could use cheese cloth or even clean pantyhose to force the juice through and leave the pulp behind.
Even if you have a regular strainer and not a mesh strainer, if the holes in the strainer are not that big you can pour the pureed mixture into the strainer and let the juice drip out into a bowl beneath. With my mesh strainer I just used a wooden utensil to push and force the pulp around on the surface so the juice would fall through.
I ended up with about one quart of tomato juice. By the time I added the rest of my ingredients, I had about two quarts of gazpacho.
What makes gazpacho so versatile is you can make this recipe any way you like. You could make it mexican inspired and use fresh corn of the cob, drained and rinsed black beans, a squeeze of lime juice and chopped cilantro. You could then garnish with chopped avocado and sour cream. You could make italian inspired gazpacho using the same changes but typical italian substitutions like fresh basil, chopped fennel, bell peppers, sprinkled crunchy pancetta, browned garlic and a drizzle of olive oil. The choices are endless really except maybe for asian….I don’t know too many recipes that are tomato centered in asian cuisine
By the way, after you strain the tomato mixture from the blender, you can use the tomato juice just as it is for recipes in soups, stews, sauces, homemade vegetable juice, etc….
Have you ever tried gazpacho? Do you have any good gazpacho tips?
Shared on the Penniless Parenting Blog Hop. Check it out!
Very creative! I hate to waste anything while I’m canning tomatoes though I haven’t figured out what to do with the waste yet, other than put it in the compost.
Have you tried running the tomatoes through a food mill? I’m wondering if that would help with getting rid of the skins.
I don’t have a food mill but I’m pretty sure that would work. However, I do like the puree in the blender. It gives it ‘body’, you know? Doesn’t just seem like tomato juice with chunks of vegetables in it. Plus the scraps are pretty small. I don’t know if you would get as much from the food mill as you do when you puree in the blender. Might be worth trying if you have one. Let me know if you do and how it turns out, ok?
Unique idea, thanks for sharing with the Hearth and Soul.
You should really try this one if you like tomatoes. It’s like you are drinking/eating summer in a bowl.