During a driveway chat the other day with my neighbor Greg, he mentioned a favorite dish in New Orleans: watermelon and crab gazpacho. I couldn't stop thinking about the combination, especially as the heat of the day wore on. The watermelon on my kitchen table from Whitton Farms also motivated me to try making the dish myself.
I found lots of recipes online, but I went with one from Good Housekeeping because it appealed to my retro side, and it was triple-tested. Plus, the recipe called for ingredients that were in my refrigerator or garden. (I even got to use an uncooked zucchini peeled and diced small.) The only thing I had to buy was the crab meat. Click here to see the recipe. It's simple enough, but it does take time to cut up and seed the melon and puree all the ingredients.
The result was well worth the effort. The gazpacho was beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. I did make a few changes. I doubled the amount of garlic, added more salt, and mixed the solids back into the gazpacho instead of discarding them. Waste not, want not, right? Now I'm anxious to try more cold soups, so if you have a favorite, please pass it along.
