Gazpacho Salad

WHAT. A. WEEK.

We were all exhausted.  Becky the Greek, Justin the Geek, and me.  They both got held up at work, while I was verging on tears most of the afternoon and couldn’t get my cooking head on for love nor money.  I was glad they were late, although I wasn’t glad the reason they were late was because they were so stressed out by their respective work days.  We were all thrilled when we finally got together in my living room.  That meant the week was over.

My best suggestion was that we should forget about the Friday Night Dinner, and instead lie on the floor in the den with a spoon each and share the enormous bowl of Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream I had nestled in the freezer, along with as many shots as was needed of whatever liquors I had in my cooking alcohol stash.  Nobody argued against that particular idea.

Somehow, sanity prevailed over emotion and I rustled up dinner, although it was mighty late when I finally brought vittles to the table.  Justin the Geek warned me that he may well do a face plant onto his plate, but that I wasn’t to be offended by such action.  Turns out he didn’t, but anyway, I’m not the offendable type.  I don’t think offendable is a word.  I am convinced that you know what I mean.

I wanted to drum up a different kind of salad this week, and one that might especially tickle Becky the Greek’s fancy.  What I settled on was Gazpacho Salad.  Yes, I realize that Gazpacho is from Spain, which is not the same as Greece, but Becky the Greek lives and dies for olives and garlic, which this has in abundance.  I figured she would love it, regardless of its country of origin.

She did.

This is not a namby-pamby, ladies-who-lunch salad.  This is a hard-hitting, wake-your-tastebuds-up salad.  There’d be no snogging after downing this one, unless both parties got in on the Gazpacho Salad act at the same time.  Trust me.  Daisy {the cat] even chose to sleep at the foot of the bed last night.

The dressing is a mix of crushed garlic, tomato juice, almonds and olive oil, which makes it about the healthiest dressing on earth.  The salad is just a mix of chunky veggies, mounded on a bed of lettuce.  This is not your normal salad.  I think you’ll like it.

Next time I make it I plan on serving it up as I’ve written in the recipe, and not how I did last night.  For the Friday Night Dinner I tossed the veggies with the dressing before heaping them into a serving dish on the lettuce.  In future I’ll leave the dressing on the side, because the dressing dulled the appearance of the veggies.  If you’d have seen the veggie pre-dressing, you’d know exactly what I mean.  Put the dressing on the side and spoon over as required at the table, is my advice; not that you asked for it.  It’s just that it was prettier before I tossed it in the dressing, and I thought you’d like to know that.

We ate it with Chicken and Cabbage Carbonara (recipe up next!).  It would be good with any stronger-flovored dish.  It would over-power more delicate proteins like fish, but would make a hearty match to beef and pork.  Omitting the garlic would reduce the power, but also take away some of the character.  I’ll leave it to you to decide which you want more.

Grab your castanets, don your frilly, brightly colored flamenco skirt and eat with gusto!  We didn’t have the energy for any of that, but it sure made us wish we did.