There are things I cook enough times to wing it without a recipe. A cold soup ain't on the list...Chef.
Okay but when you do find a recipe you like, do not forget the Foccacia bread! It is an absolute must!
I've made all sorts of Italian breads and flat breads, but never Foccacia. I'll have to give it a try. I like that you don't have to form it into a shape...that's always been a weak point. I bet it could be modified to go with gazpacho...maybe put some cotija on it. I'm looking at this Alton Brown gazpacho recipe. Note that the basil is a garnish and not an ingredient.
I like Feta better than Cotija with Foccacia because it’s let’s salty and allows me to taste the herbs in the bread better but that said, there are those who say otherwise which is why we have such a variety to choose from. Thank God we’re all a little different so we can have all those varieties. So far as the basil goes, it’s your choice. In a commercial setting, I often used people’s memory of a taste to influence my foods. Aromatic herbs, when used as a garnish is automatically tasted by sight and smell before a person has even touched their food. It looks nice yes, but even more than that if a person has tasted a particular herb before either raw or in another dish and it was a good experience, the brain connects that taste with the food that it is presented with even if it isn’t incorporated in that dish. It’s fun. Try it on yourself or a guest. A single piece of rosemary or the like next to a bowl of chili and you’ll swear that there’s rosemary in the chili. Sight and smell are almost more powerful than the tongue.
Thanks for that. Interesting stuff. Olfactory senses are tied to so much. I keep promising myself to take cooking classes so I can learn this stuff, but I'm not that dedicated...I wanna pick & choose, not study. I really need a baking class so I can learn how to roll out dough uniformly and evenly. THAT's my weak point...my pizzas look like amoebae. And my pie crusts??? Don't ask.
I made another batch of the cold gazpacho, and once again, I blended it into more of a fresh V-8 rather than a chunky cold soup. This is thicker than store-bought V-8, the flavor is awesome, and since it has all of the fresh veggies, it has to be a lot healthier than just drinking the processed kind from the store. It seems to me that this can be a year-around kind of item; because when heated up, it is more like a hot, spicy tomato soup drink, and tastes great either way. The next time, I might try adding just a little fresh carrot to the recipe and see how that turns out.