WATERMELON TOMATO GAZPACHO

3 cups watermelon, seeded and pureed in a blender
1 cup seeded watermelon, diced small
1 cup seeded tomato, diced small – (about 2 medium tomatoes)
1 cup peeled, seeded cucumber, diced small – (½ English cucumber or 1 or 2 whole Kirbys)
½ cup red or green bell pepper, diced small
2 TBSP lime juice
1 small handful cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1/3 small jalapeño, seeded and minced
1 green onion, white and 1 inch of green, minced
1 teaspoon sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Okay, we got this recipe from the incomparable RAW FOOD REAL WORLD restaurant owners and cookbook authors Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis. We plain and simply do not know how anyone survives summer without this soup. We agree with the authors that you need to do your best to steer clear of the seedless/tasteless watermelons (or seedless anything for that matter) as the recipe hangs on the balance of the sweet watermelon and the summer fresh tomatoes.

I DOUBLE THIS RECIPE EACH AND EVERY TIME I MAKE IT. I use a really large bowl and quickly dice each of my ingredients and throw them into the bowl. I hate to measure, so I just use the juice of 2 limes. Do not skimp on the fresh ginger (actually I go a little heavy-handed on it as it makes the soup.) Being Irish and all, Annie and I like our double recipe to still include only 1/3 of a jalapeño. But, hey if you are a hottie, go for it with the jalapeño.

I fill my entire Vitamixer with the chunks of watermelon. Once my chopping is completed, I give everything in the bowl a really good stir.  Then I pour my watermelon puree over everything.  We enjoy it two ways: warm from the Vitamixer and nicely chilled for hours.

I find that a single recipe uses one half of a small watermelon – we love the organic sugar babies as they tend to have a fair number of seeds in them even when they are labeled as seedless. I take the other half and make a smoothie with Romain lettuce and ½ of a lime.

QUICK NOTE HERE ON watermelon/romaine SMOOTHIE: I was recently perusing Dr. Karyn Mitchell’s 4-3-2-1 Diet pamphlet and was fascinated with her advice on which greens to use for smoothies; namely, folks with kidney challenges (that would so be me) need to take it easy on the kale, spinach and chard as they build up oxalic acid. Instead these folks should consider substituting romaine and other lettuce greens.  Alarms really went off for me with this news as I have really weak kidneys and there was tremendous urgency to my need for my spring kidney cleanse (more on that in a future blog entry). Anyone who knows Annie and I know that we are Boutenko Smoothie freaks and lo and behold, we do use LOTS of these kidney-challenging greens. I have found my weak kidneys love the romaine and watermelon combination. Thanks, as usual, to the extraordinary Dr. Mitchell and her 4-3-2-1 Raw Diet guidelines.