Skip to main content

Summer Soup



A few years ago my friend Laura made a chilled watermelon tomato soup for a picnic.  The unusual but delicious combination stuck in my head, and I recently decided to recreate it.  I looked up a few recipes on the internet but mostly proceeded by trial and error.  After much blending and pouring of pink slushy liquids, I came up with something quite tasty.  And very refreshing when the mercury is topping 100F day after day.




Chilled Watermelon Tomato Soup

1/4 of a largish watermelon
About 6 tomatoes (1 lb 4 oz or so), peeled
1/2 of a medium onion, or a shallot if one happens to be residing in your fridge
Handful of fresh parsley.  A bit of mint might be nice too.
Juice of one lime
1 tbsp of wine vinegar (I used white, but red seems to be generally specified)
Salt and pepper to taste








This amount pretty much filled my blender, which says it has a capacity of 1.5 litres or 6 cups.  That was 4 generous servings, or you could easily get 6 out of it, especially if serving it as a starter.

You probably know how reliable your blender is with large quantities; with mine it was definitely worth blending the watermelon first, then the tomatoes, onion and everything else.  Pour the watermelon slurry back in and give it a quick whiz to mix it all up.  This also has the advantage that you can adjust the sweetness, so add the watermelon gradually and taste as you go to see how you like it.

Finally, pour into summery glass bowls and garnish with crumbled feta cheese, olives, sprigs or mint or parsley.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Baby Language

For some reason baby equipment is an area in which American English differs markedly from British English. As well as learning how to care for a baby, we had to learn a whole new vocabulary! Fortunately we are now fluently bilingual, and I have compiled a handy US-UK baby dictionary for you. Diaper n. Nappy Mom says if you can read this change my diaper. The first time you change one of these you will be all thumbs and stick the little adhesive tabs to yourself, the baby and probably the changing mat before you get them where they ought to go. A few years later you will be able to lasso a running toddler and change them before they even know what's happened (yes, I have seen it done). You will also get through more diapers than you ever thought possible, creating scary amounts of expense and waste. Hence we are now mostly using: Cloth diaper n. Reusable nappy Cool baby. No longer those terry squares, the main drawback is that there are now so many types it can be qu
5 comments
Read more

our new apartment

Moving was a slightly surreal experience given that our new place looks almost exactly the same as the old one, except for being a different layout. That's what you get for living in a throw-'em-up-and-pack-'em-in apartment complex I guess - albeit a very nice one. So, entering apartment 433: To your right is the master bedroom: with en-suite bathroom: and looking back, from your left, that's a walk-in closet, door to the hallway and door to the bathroom: Following the layout so far? OK, go back to the hallway and put your back to the front door again, and this time walk straight forwards into the sitting room: As you can see, ahead of you is the door to the balcony: for which I have grand plans for a herb garden and other plants. Leading off the living room is the dining area: and if you walk through that and round to your right you reach the kitchen: Go back through the living room again: and if you turn right (
3 comments
Read more

Speedy Steamed Pudding

One of the highlights of being in catered halls for a couple of years at university was the sponge puddings. Great big sheets of chocolate or vanilla sponge, carved into hefty blocks and doused with thick custard. The main courses were edible at best, but those puddings would fill you up for a week. Good solid puddings, whether baked, steamed or boiled, have been a mainstay of English cooking for centuries. Something about the cold, damp, dark winters inspired British cooks to endless variations on suet, jam, currants, custard and other comforting ingredients. Once I left the nurturing environs of my parents' house and university halls, pudding stopped being an everyday affair and became a more haphazard, if-I-feel-like-making-any event. And steamed puddings especially, with their two hours over simmering water, don't really lend themselves to spur of the moment dessert-making. However, technology has moved on since those first days of puddings. I'd been vaguely
5 comments
Read more