Recipe: Watermelon Gazpacho

There is only one thing better than picking vegetables from your very own garden when you are eating fresh - picking vegetables from someone else's garden. Enter my pops. He grows a terrific garden every year. And it's only a couple minutes away from my house. 

If you have two minutes, hang in the garden with me. If you hate relaxing things like nature scenes and bird songs, skip to the recipe.

A decorating blog I read on the regular, Decor8, features Liz and Jewels, two girls who cook on two continents, once a month. Jewels just posted about Watermelon Gazpacho on Decor8. That's a bit of a web to weave but hopefully it's not too tangled. I'm not a huge fan of watermelon (texture issues, I got 'em) or gazpacho, but something about this recipe made me want to give it a try. 

Jewels says to use any colorful vegetable you desire in the recipe. So I did. Let's get processing!

Watermelon Gazpacho (adapted from Decor8)

3 slices watermelon (I'll add more next time, I was a bit watermelon shy. Don't be like me.)

1/2 each of green, red and yellow bell pepper

1 cucumber

1 large tomato

1/4 red onion

1/2 cup chopped eggplant

generous handful of cilantro 

juice of one lemon

dash of salt 

goat cheese, crumbled

Throw everything except the goat cheese into a food processor (or blender) and process the heck out of it. When you reach the desired consistency, serve it up and throw a little pico de gallo (made from the left-over pieces of vege for the gazpacho), cilantro and goat cheese on top. Eat!

**Also, sorry I stopped blogging for 1.5 months. I'll not do that again.

Recipe: Shrimp & Tomato Soup

I'm all about easy cooking on weeknights. And a recipe that only calls for dirtying one pot? Yes ma'am. This dish is the sort that you can toss together while you pay more attention to the latest episode of The Walking Dead than to the stove. Invite a couple pals over because it's also the kind of dish that will have folks believing that you really know your way around the kitchen. It tastes...fancy.

1 tbsp evoo	couple shakes of onion powder
2 cloves garlic, minced	1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 cans of no-salt-added diced tomatoes (w/ juice)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro	1 scallion, chopped
1 lb shrimp, peeled, deveined, precooked	2/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Stir in onion powder and garlic; cook one minute. 
Add tomatoes and bring to a boil. 
Reduce to medium-low heat and simmer 5 minutes. 
Remove from heat, stir in cilantro, scallion, pepper and shrimp. 
Sprinkle with feta just before serving.

Recipe adapted from Food Network.