Yesterday I tried out a few new recipes on some of my Marys (yes, about half of my friends are named Mary) who thankfully are happy to be guinea pigs in the kitchen. It was a near perfect day, so of course we moved from the kitchen and turned our lunch into a backyard picnic. We commiserated about our kids who are all in the various stages of going off to college, selecting a college, and graduating from college. Yikes. But we managed to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine and solve the innumerable issues stemming form the whole college process ……or at least we gave it a shot!
My end of season garden has lots of peppers and cucumbers plus a few tomatoes and I had an idea for a recipe I was dying to try. These ladies have learned to be brutally honest about anything new I spring on them, so I knew it would either be a hit or a miss. Thank goodness it was a hit and one I can’t wait to make it again. The recipe I experimented with a Gazpacho Granita, and it was just exactly as fantastic as I had hoped it would be. Here’s the deal, everyone likes granitas, which are typically a fruit, sugar, and water combination that is frozen and then agitated, usually by scraping the mixture with a fork. It has more texture than ice cream and doesn’t require any special equipment to produce. My family adores the gazpacho I make when I put it in the freezer until a little bit of ice forms on the top.
It was an easy transition to turn that into Gazpacho Granita. Plus it was ridiculously simple to make, which is never a bad idea. I threw tomatoes, peppers, onion, and a cucumber in the blender with a few spices and a hit of tomato juice. The resulting puree went into a large Pyrex dish and then into the freezer. After an hour or so I scraped it with a fork and repeated the process before I served it. The Gazpacho Granita got topped with a dollop of mascarpone, but sour cream would have been just as good. A basil leaf made it pretty, but was just for fluff. (Who doesn’t like a bit of fluff?). All of my Marys loved Gazpacho Granita. It was refreshing, had about zero calories, although that doesn’t matter at a backyard picnic, and of course, the most important part – it was just delicious. You should try this one. The weather forecast says we’re up for a few more weeks of ninety plus degree-days, and I’m definitely planning chill out with this perfect end of summer treat.
Ingredients
3 to 4 tomatoes, quartered
1 bell pepper – red or green, seeded and quartered
1 cucumber, peeled and cut into large pieces
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 clove garlic
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt (more to taste)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dried oregano
½ cup tomato or V-8 juice
hot sauce to taste ( we like a bit of heat)
Sour Cream or mascarpone for topping
Directions
Put all ingredients except sour cream or mascarpone in the blender and pulse until finely chopped.
Pour mixture into a pyrex dish or large casserole, cover with plastic wrap and put in the freezer.
After about an hour scrape the mixture with a fork to break up ice crystals.
It should be mostly frozen in two hours.
Scrape again and serve toped with a spoonful of sour cream or mascarpone.
Add a basil leaf for fluff – optional!
