Cooling Off the Kitchen

Temperatures in the valley of the sun can be brutal this time of year. (As a matter of fact, we're expecting to hit 117 today!) When the mercury rises, no one - especially me - wants to be stuck in a hot kitchen making dinner. So to beat the heat, I frequently make dinner first thing in the morning, store it in the fridge, and reheat as needed. And when the temps get really hot (like today), I don't even turn on the stove! One of my favorite summertime dishes is gazpacho, which requires only about 10 minutes of work with a food processor and makes a perfect snack or light meal.

Generally, gazpacho is pretty low in carbs because of its veggie ingredients, though I did have to make a couple of tweaks to my favorite recipe. The original calls for one diced red onion, and since that comes in at 5.5 g. of carbs for half a cup, I decided to use green onions instead and reduce the amount. With about half as much onion removed from the recipe, I decided to add some extra herbs to enliven the flavor. In addition, the original recipe calls for three cups of tomato juice, but after reading all the labels I ended up with a generic brand of vegetable juice (like V8) because it had the lowest carb count at 6 grams per cup. Finally, I substituted red wine vinegar (which has 0 carbs) for the balsamic vinegar which adds 2 grams per tablespoon (this saves 8 grams total for the 1/4 cup in the recipe).

Gazpacho gets better as it rests, so I mixed it up early this morning to allow the flavors time to meld before I scoop some up for lunch. One of the best things about this dish is the fact that the longer it sits, the better it tastes. It is also versatile in that a cup of gazpacho makes a wonderful cold summertime snack, but it could easily become a meal by adding some salad shrimp to the bowl. In addition, it is an elegant appetizer with boiled and peeled shrimp arranged around the edge of the bowl and a dollop of sour cream (only one carb for two tablespoons!) in the middle. Enjoy!

Cool as a Cucumber Gazpacho

1 hothouse cucumber, quartered and seeded, but not peeled (5 net carbs - Hothouse cucumbers are lower in carbs than regular cucumbers with only 1 net carb per 3 ounces.)
2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded (7 net carbs - Red and green bell peppers have a lower carb count than the yellow ones. Who knew?)
2 cups chopped tomatoes (12.8 net carbs - A plum tomato will yield about half a cup chopped. Because this recipe is all about the freshness of the veggies, I used two larger heirloom tomatoes.)
1/2 cup chopped green onion (2.4 net carbs)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 net carbs - You can use three cloves of fresh garlic instead, but I always have the minced garlic in the fridge.)
3 cups tomato or vegetable juice (18 net carbs - Read the labels. Six carbs per cup was the lowest one I found at the supermarket.)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar (0 net carbs)
1/4 cup olive oil (0 net carbs)
Basil paste or chopped fresh basil (0 net carbs)
Salt and pepper (0 net carbs)

• Rough chop all the veggies to fit easily in a food processor.
• Begin with the onions and bell pepper, pulsing to chop finely. Add the cucumber and continue pulsing. Finish with the tomatoes.
• Process the veggies until they are the size/consistency you like. (I like mine pretty fine, so I run the blades longer. If you like bigger chunks of vegetables, stop processing sooner or process the veggies separately to control the size better.)
• Pour the veggies in a large non-reactive bowl.
• Add the tomato/vegetable juice, vinegar, olive oil, and garlic. Stir to combine well.
• Season to taste. (Remember, the flavors will get stronger as the dish rests in the fridge. I usually add some salt, pepper, and basil at the beginning, and then add a little more after several hours of chilling.)

This makes 7.5 cups of gazpacho with a total of 48.2 grams of net carbs for the entire batch.
That's 6.4 grams of net carbs per one cup serving.