Gazpacho

Cool and refreshing, this is the perfect summer dish.

Step 1: Ingredients

Take advantage of those in-season veggies! This, during the summer, is cheap as hell.

ingredients
4 cups tomato juice
1 small red onion, minched
1/2 green bell pepper, deseeded and minced
1/2 red bell pepper, deseeded and minced
1 cucumber, chopped
2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 green onions, chopped
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh is better)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried cumin
1 teaspoon basil (fresh preferred, if fresh use 3 tsp and chop it up)
salt and pepper to taste

optional:
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp (or thereabout) lemon zest (take a fine grater to the outside of the lemon and grate off the yellow part until you've got about a pinch.)

Step 2: Prep and Serving.

Oh, man. Ok.

Throw it in a blender or cuisinart and chop until it's well blended but still with some chunks. Check the pic for reference. Throw it in the fridge for at least 3 hours. The longer you refrigerate, the stronger the taste. Criminally simple.

To take this to a picnic, toss it in the cooler with the beer in some tupperware. I *promise* you that if you bring this to a bbq or picnic it'll vanish faster than you'll expect. This recipe yields 10 servings, so mod it as you will.