The way I’ve been eating lately feels like summer’s last hurrah. I picked the last of the beans from my garden, leaving a few to dry on the vine for seed. Here and there, there are rogue zucchini and cucumbers left lurking in the garden, and I’m just about ready to make green tomato chutney.
Happily, I’ve still got a big bowl of ripe tomatoes on the counter, so my summer harvest isn’t quite spent. Most of them are destined for roasting, if they don’t get eaten out of hand first. Some more were set aside for this week’s Cook the Book Fridays selection, gazpacho. David describes it as an “icy-cold liquid salad” and it’s a perfect description. It also showcases the late summer flavours of tomato, cucumber, and bell pepper in a way that makes me long for summer to begin all over again.
I skipped the traditional slice of bread that’s used to thicken the soup, for a gluten-free version, and I don’t think the consistency suffered that much. My breadless gazpacho is in good company, including
Martha Rose Shulman‘s version in the New York Times. I’ll make David’s version as written when I’m serving gluten-friendly eaters, but it’s nice to know it works so well for gluten-free eaters, too.
I served the soup in shot glasses, for a grazing Friday night supper. There was hummus and gluten-free crackers for M. Vegan. For me, the croutons for the soup became tartines, instead, slathered with goat cheese mixed with rosemary and oregano from my garden. And we both worked our way through a plateful of crudités.
I’m glad that squash and chanterelles are starting to appear, to assuage the pain of summer’s disappearance, otherwise, this meal would have put me into a winter’s-long funk. Even so, I’m glad there’s some soup left for tomorrow. I’m going to savour the last few tastes of summer for as long as possible.
You can read through everyone’s posts here. And consider joining this community of wonderful cooks and lovely people, as we work our way through David Lebovitz‘ My Paris Kitchen.
One Wet Foot 
That sounds like a fun dinner, I love that. We really liked this soup, it has such a delicious flavor, I was really surprised. The little slices of toasts were great with the creamy goat cheese.
Another great recipe from David, and I like the way you can adapt for everyone’s needs. Great job.
Hi Teresa, a lovely dish and meal all combined. Your Post leaves me sentimental on the bounty of summer, and bittersweet in that it seems this season I wasn’t fully able to maximize among the choices. Our garden was near fruitless to the point of being astounding, with few tomatoes, ZERO bush beans, and only a few zucchini and summer squash which are typically so fruitful they seem bursting to the point that I can hardly prepare them or give enough away. It seems we weren’t the only ones in this east coast area with such dismal results. The bugs chewed the kale and Swiss chard- it was all a big shocker, then due to a lot of social events and gatherings along with losing some time after my tumble down the stairs- we didn’t even go peach picking. Sigh. Still there were lots and lots of good times- just not related to homemade goodies on the table- I’m officially vicariously living through you and Cheri this summer on the garden delights! Enjoy the remainder of the flavors to be had!
Hi Teresa! Surprisingly this year in the high desert, fall is coming too! My own tomatoes are gone, but there are still a few to be had from the one roadside stand still open.
We really enjoyed this too. I LOVE how you served this in shot glasses. I think that would be wonderful. Besides the toasts, I added avocado on top. One of the best things were the olives I served as a counterpoint. I can just see a small skewer garnish!!!
Happy you enjoyed this! Hope the rest of your summer treats are wonderful too!!! Happy weekend!
I love the presentation in shot glasses!
Hi Teresa, your gazpacho is such a wonderful color, love your presentation. Hope you are having a wonderful summer.
Like your use of gazpacho as part of the spread of a grazing Friday night supper and the gluten-free theme. Nicely put together. Happy autumn!
What a lovely post, Teresa. I envy you your garden and am impressed that you make use of everything in it. Many of my friends have community garden plots and are very ambitious for 1/2 of the summer but then they get busy and you know what happens to the gardens. I liked this but it did not have much liquid. Maybe my tomatoes weren’t juicy enough. Next time I might leave out the bread. Your first photo is gorgeous.
Lovely photos! I think the next time I will leave out the bread, as it makes the soup thicker. And I prefer slightly thinner than that!
I am happy to hear this worked without the bread. I included the bread (my husband is willing to eat small amounts of bread or flour when it’s necessary to a recipe), but I will try it without next time. This soup was a nice way to celebrate the end of summer’s bounty!
How refreshing! And I actually prefer the gazpacho without the bread (I guess not the true Spanish way:))
Here is wishing you great enjoyment of fall’s bounty to follow up soon! A lovely gluten-free and vegetarian feast you wrote about here!
I am so happy to hear the different options for bread, I am trying to stay away from it- so I love other ideas. Your Friday night dinner sounded like a tapas meal. Great idea.
I enjoyed this post. My garden is mostly over except for some red kuri squash that’s still maturing. I’m trying to figure out what to do with all my green cherry tomatoes. I still have jars of chutney and pickled tomatoes left over from last summer — not so popular. I prefer breadless gazpacho, though I did add it this time to try it again (hadn’t added in a while). I think it has a purer flavor.
this is how i should use up my goat cheese log !!