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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.

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