PSSST! We loved doing The Rumbly Tummy Livestream every week so we could get our fill of tasty treats. With that era over, however, we still have a hankering to share our good eats. For those of you who also love to eat (and see what other people are eating), follow us on Instagram @the_rumbly_tummy . This way we can indulgently post about food without those tasteless people complaining about it on our regular Instagram (which is @theroughandtumble , in case you don't already follow). Okay, on with this month's blog!
I don't like gazpacho. I just don't. I like my soup hot and my life partners hotter. Just kidding, but hot soup is sort of a non negotiable. Even when Scott only sort of reheats yesterday's soup and it has a vague coolness in the middle of the potatoes-- I don't necessarily throw a fit, but I will put it back in the pot to heat to the appropriate soup temperature.
But lots of things are changing.
We are in June in the Central Valley in California, and almost weekly we are hitting temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. Being hot, it turns out, is the only negotiable for cold soup. Plus, I'm trying to be less of a stuck up snob.
I found this recipe in a little flow book called A Book That Takes Its Time: An Unhurried Adventure in Creative Mindfulness. Scott got it for me for Christmas-- two Christmases ago. It's full of all kinds of interesting articles about the creative mind, activities, scavenger hunts, and even deep dives into trauma. And now that I have so much time, I've been taking my time with it. It also happens to be one of my favorite things to find recipes in books that are not cookbooks and to try and cook them. I once found a fried apple pie recipe in the back of a gruesome comic book and felt like I'd just won a treasure map.
Part of what this book is teaching me is part of what this quarantine is teaching me: that time doesn't rejuvenate itself. You get what you get, and you don't get upset. But, for minutes at a time, and if you get really lost in a project, hours at a time, you can imagine that it slows down, that it is savored. John Congleton, a record producer, said in an interview a couple years back, and I paraphrase, that if you hear music that you don't like, you probably haven't listened to it enough.
I guess, it takes time.
So, aside from the "I won'ts" like meat and wheat, the other categories of food are all open to me, and waiting to be loved. I just have to take my time with them. And that is how I found this delicious gazpacho-- in a book asking me to take time during a time that I have to take my time, with a kind of soup I've never given the time for. I've altered it here from the original quite a bit, though the original does recommend putting poached salmon on the top, which would be actually delicious. For our version, we used diced mango and some asparagus from the garden. We weren't disappointed, and it was downright delicious-- and felt fancy, too.
So, for June 2020's The Rumbly Tummy, we bring you Summer Soup.
Summer Soup
Ingredients
2 ripe avocados
1 green apple, peeled, cored, diced
1 medium cucumber, peeled, diced
1/2 small sweet onion, diced
2 1/2 c vegetable stock (room temperature or cold)
salt & pepper
for toppings--
Mango, diced
Asparagus, blanched & chopped into 2" pieces
Green Onion, diced
Basil, chopped finely
Spinach, fresh & chopped
Instructions:
Place avocado, apple, cucumber, sweet onion, stock, & salt/pepper into a blender. Blend! Taste and season with more salt/pepper.
Scoop into bowls. Sprinkle mango, green onion, and basil on top, with spinach leaves as garnish or chopped & added with additional ingredients. Serve at room temperature or cold.
*Additional toppings can be spicier, like watercress, radishes, or finely diced greens. Try it out with papaya or your favorite stone fruit!
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