Farmers' Market Gazpacho

The weather on the weekend was magnificent and I finally made a trip to the Farmers' Market.  The local strawberries are in season and they taste so good!

This is probably the last week for local asparagus, and now tomatoes, snap peas and zucchini are ready.

Soon the rest of the fruit and vegetables grown here will ripen, and I can't wait. In the meantime, the Farmers' Market had some hot house produce and local-ish veggies for sale.

I bought everything I need to make gazpacho - which is a summer time favorite at our house.

Mr. StyleBurb and I love my gazpacho recipe so much that when our 20 year old food processor broke, we replaced it right away with this new fancier version.

Over the years I have tweaked  my recipe for gazpacho until it tasted perfect to us. The aroma of all the fresh veggies is like summer in bowl!

My recipe is really simple.

- whiz 3 cloves of garlic and one small red onion in your food processor
- add in 2 ripe tomatoes, 1 red pepper and 1 green pepper (seeds removed) and 1 large cucumber
- pulse several times to chop everything into bits
- add 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar and about 1 cup of vegetable cocktail
- add 1 tsp. of salt and 1 tsp. of fresh black pepper

- pulse until you have the consistency you like
- add more vegetable cocktail if you want a thinner soup

Chill the soup for several hours before serving. I like to top our gazpacho with croutons and I always serve Tabasco sauce on the side.  Mr. StyleBurb likes it spicy!

Delicious!

 

 

School's Out For Summer: Meet The Kids

My thanks to Alice Cooper for help with the title ;)

Thursday was our first day of summer vacation.  I've added full time chauffeur, recreation director, camp counselor, lifeguard and police officer to my official job title of 'Stay-At-Home-Mom'. 

I think an introduction of my kids is in order, since I'll probably mention them a bit more over the next two months. My kids asked me not to use their real names or photos on my blog...

...so I gave them a little summertime homework assignment: choose a blog alias and I'll find a picture of an actor or actress whom they resemble.

Audrey (age 15)  is my oldest daughter.

Audrey is our Thinker. She's a gentle and sweet girl who is responsible and dependable. Audrey just finished her first year of high school with spectacular results. She plays piano and flute and is learning the trumpet over the summer. Audrey has her Blackberry with her at all times so she can be in constant communication with her friends to plan trips to Starbucks, the movies and malls.  Thankfully, she's very tolerant of her younger brother and sister!

Awesome Possum (age 13) is my son.

Awesome Possum is our Comedian/Inventor. His yearbook signature page was filled with comments from his friends about how funny he is and that he's always willing to help out. A.P. is bright and witty and has a very strong sense of what's fair and just. He has a section in the basement where he can modify electronics and test out his inventions. Of course, Awesome Possum loves computer games. He builds virtual cities, houses and ''stuff". I really don't understand what he does; it all seems very technical and complicated.

Purplicious (age 9) is my youngest daughter.

 *remember, they choose these monikers themselves.

 

Purplicious is our Artist. She's creative and girlie and loves art, crafts, baking, shopping and fashion. It's not uncommon for her to have three wardrobe changes in one afternoon. Her lip gloss collection numbers close to fifty.  Purplicious is extremely chatty and inquisitive.  Mr. StyleBurb once tried to count how many questions she asked in 10 minutes, but he lost count. Purplicious is very good-hearted and has a lot of empathy for people and animals.

Summers at our house are busy, loud and messy- there's never a dull moment!