Cucumber Avocado Cilantro Soup or Smoothie

Cucumber Avocado Cilantro – A Cold Soup or Smoothie

I love this Cucumber Avocado Cilantro concoction! It’s great as a smoothie for breakfast, or a chilled soup for dinner, or a simple snack anytime.

Makes 3 cups

Ingredients

2 cups Cilantro Garlic Broth
1/2 hothouse cucumber, sliced into rounds about 1/4-inch thick
1/2 cup plain (full fat) yogurt
1/2 ripe avocado
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/8 teaspoon salt

Steps

Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend to desired consistency. Serve chilled! 

Ingredient Notes

Cucumber – I prefer use the long hothouse cucumber as it’s not waxed, has a thin skin, and is seedless.  If you use a regular cucumber, you may need to peel it if it’s waxed and remove some of the seeds, if numerous and large.

Yogurt – I especially like the Seven Stars Farm Organic Yogurt (full fat) Original Plain. Of course, there are other quality yogurts to choose from. Or you could make your own!

Salt – I like the flavor of Celtic Sea Salt and used the fine ground version for this recipe.

Enjoy and be healthy!
~Leni

Cilantro Garlic Broth. Spring in a Pot!

What do you do with leftover cilantro stems? How about making a delicious vegetable broth? Just toss cilantro stems, garlic, and water into a pot — and 15 minutes later you can be sipping a light and delicious Cilantro Garlic Broth! And of course, you can use this broth to make many different soups and smoothies, including this delicious Cucumber Avocado Cilantro creation.

Ingredients

• Cilantro stems from 2 bunches of fresh cilantro (or 1 bunch of fresh cilantro — leaves and stems)
• 4 – 5 garlic cloves (cut large cloves in half)
• 4 – 5 cups filtered cold water

Steps

1. Place the cilantro stems, garlic cloves , and  water into a pot. (Note: After putting up this post, I realized it would have been better to not cook the garlic at all, and simply purée it when puréeing the contents of the pot. The reason for this is explained under Ingredient Notes below.)
2. Heat to boiling. Cover and boil gently for 1 – 2 minutes.
3. If you did not add the garlic to the pot earlier (as explained in the Note above, then wait for the liquid in the pot to cool down and come to room temperature. Then add the garlic to the pot and using an immersion hand blender purée the contents of the pot.
4. Refrigerate  the broth in glass containers. It keeps for a about a week!

Equipment notes

• Mason Jars are great for storing broth — especially these Mason jars which are safe for the freezer.

Ingredient notes

• Cilantro stems – If you love this broth as I do, then suddenly you’ll find yourself with extra cilantro! So what can you make with the extra cilantro? My favorite recipe is Cilantro Chutney (a pesto). It’s amazing!
• Garlic – In this recipe, I cut the large cloves of garlic in half, as shown in photo. But later, I remembered that there’s a better way to treat garlic in order to maximize garlic’s anti-cancer properties.  So next time, after cooking the cilantro, I’m going to let the cilantro broth cool down in the pot and then when it’s cooled to room temperature, I will add the raw garlic  to the pot. and purée the garlic along with the cilantro, as explained in the recipe Steps. The process of puréeing the garlic and not heating it, maximizes the garlic’s anti-cancer potency! Then when this broth is used to make soup, I’ll heat this broth but only briefly.

Recipes made with this broth

• I’ll post some recipes using this broth soon! And sorry about not posting recipes with chicken broth yet. It is finally spring here and I just had to cook up something green and spring-like instead.

Thank you

• The inspiration for this broth came from the recipe, Cilantro Inspired Broth (from the blog, From Garden to Soup Bowl).  Thank you Nellie!

Enjoy and be healthy!
~Leni

Gazpacho – A Fabulous Summer Soup

This is a thick cold soup with the subtle undertones of smoked Spanish paprika and sherry vinegar. And it’s not spicy/hot like most gazpachos I have had. In fact, in experimenting with the recipe, I tried adding some hot chile to it  and I did not like the result.  The chile overpowered the delightful smoky and tangy flavors of the paprika and vinegar.

This gazpacho is perfect for anyone who is gluten-free because it’s not thickened with bread. The  pureed vegetables – with their seeds and skins – thicken it.

(Note: This recipe is adapted from the recipe, Gazpacho, created by chef Geraldine Ferraro, as featured in Epicurious, August 2007 and pinned to my Pinterest board: Tomatoes).

Makes 3 1/2 cups

Ingredients
1 cup tomato juice
1 pound ripe tomatoes, cut into large bite-size pieces
8 ounces peeled and roughly chopped cucumber
1 clove garlic, put through a garlic press
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small cucumber, peeled and diced
1 small red onion, diced
1 medium size yellow bell pepper, diced

Steps

1. Pour tomato juice into blender. To the blender, add the tomatoes, 8 ounces cucumber, garlic, salt, smoked Spanish paprika, sherry vinegar, and olive oil. Blend until you have a thick puree. Transfer the gazpacho to a bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight (to cool the gazpacho and develop the flavor).
2. Ladle the chilled gazpacho into bowls. Spoon the diced cucumber, red onion, and yellow bell pepper into each bowl of gazpacho.
3. At the table, you may want to pass the olive oil and sherry vinegar so that each person can add some to their bowl, if desired.

Ingredient notes

• Tomato juice – I must admit, I was too lazy to run to the store to get the tomato juice. So I went begging at my neighbor’s door and he handed me a huge plastic bottle of Campbell’s tomato juice, low sodium.  For this recipe, it was fine. But next time I make this gazpacho, which will definitely be soon, I will use organic tomato juice and look for one that’s not high in sodium.
• Tomatoes – It’s tomato season here, so I had my pick of tomatoes at the farmer’s market. For the gazpacho, I used Black Velvet tomatoes – a meaty (not watery) tomato (shown in the photo above). Plum tomatoes are also meaty and would work nicely.
• Smoked Spanish paprika – I love Penzeys Smoked Spanish Paprika! Tip: The flavor will stay fresh longer if you store this spice (and all spices) in your freezer.
• Sherry vinegar – I have Columela Solera 30 Sherry Vinegar in my pantry. This brand is often recommended by foodies — and it’s not the most expensive by a long shot!

How to store

• You can freeze gazpacho in ice cube trays or silicone mini muffin pans. Then when you make a fresh batch of gazpacho, and you don’t want to wait 4 or more hours until it’s chilled, just add the ice cubes of gazpacho to the blender and give it a whirl. This will cool down the gazpacho so you can enjoy it sooner.  Of course, it’s better to let the flavors meld in the refrigerator, but it’s not always practical to do so.

Check out my PINTEREST BOARD: TOMATOES for more great gazpacho recipes!

• If you are new to Pinterest , let me assure you it’s easy to get around Pinterest. Here’s how easy:

1. Click on the link: PINTEREST board: Tomatoes.
2. Click on a photo of a recipe that interests you, and up will come a larger photo of the same image.
3. On the larger photo, you’ll see the “website” button.
4. Click on the website button, and you will go to the website where the recipe came from!
5. To return to my Pinterest board to see more recipes with tomatoes, just click on the Pinterest tab in your browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc.) and then click on the back arrow in your browser.

• If you are a Pinterest enthusiast like I am, you might want to follow me on Pinterest! Then you’ll see all the recipes that I find online and love!

Share your recipe!

• If you have a gazpacho recipe that you would like to share, you can share your recipe by leaving a comment on this blog.

Enjoy and be healthy!
~Leni