homemade tomato juice (and gazpacho)

Howdy!

I’ve been busy hatching plans, freaking out about said plans (just a little), and working on a few projects. Like making cloth napkins. Perhaps you can tell by the new banner that I tricked someone into letting me borrow their sewing machine. My dilemma was this: I love fabric, and if you ever turn me loose near a store-full of it, I will buy some. But, I’m terrible at sewing. The solution: sew squares of pretty, pretty fabric to squares of soft, face-friendly flannel. Napkins! Anyone can do it, with minimal cursing. (Disclaimer: the edges will fray, but I personally find that charming.)

I also decided to make 1000 paper cranes, for good luck of course. I’m about 300 in, and it’s surprisingly enjoyable and meditative. I’m sure all that will change when the fishing wire comes out for stringing.

In the kitchen, I attempted to make some roasted veggies tossed with olive oil, mint, and lemon. How could something so pretty taste so…icky?

I blame the turnips. I’ve always been under the impression that they’re winter vegetables, and perhaps they are. These summer turnips were bitter. I was lured in by their pretty purple packaging. Tricksy turnips!

Also…squash cooks way faster. Oops! Living and learning.

I also made some tomato juice. Way easy. Turned that tomato juice into gazpacho. I didn’t write down the recipe, but I’m not entirely sure you need one. I used cucumber, bell pepper (a crazy purple one), a little bit of jalapeño, red onion, cilantro–all finely diced–plus salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lime juice. I chopped it all by hand, but it might be worthwhile to process each individually (ala Ina Garten) in a food processor. I say this only because I was left with a lot of large chunks in the bottom of my glass, and didn’t feel very lady-like violently shaking the dregs into my gaping maw. It doesn’t sound pleasant at all, now that I type it out. I really wanted those last bits.

Anyway, you stir all of those tasty bits into your tomato juice and let it hang out in the fridge for a few hours. I stirred in a drizzle of olive oil at the end, as one recipe instructed, but it just ended up beading on the surface. See, recipes can sometimes lead you astray.

Not this one, though. <<click for tomato juice recipe