Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Makeshift Gazpacho

The big tomatoes in my garden are beginning to ripen, and they'll continue to do so as long as I can rig the plant so it stays upright.

So I made some this cold soup by picking and choosing ingredients and methods from recipes from the Food Network website. Most recipes call for tomato juice, but I forgot that item when I went to the store. Instead, I used low sodium V-8.

Here are the ingredients:

3 large-style tomatoes (I used a large, medium, and small size of a tomato similar to Better Boy or Big Boy) peeled and diced

1 yellow bell pepper diced

1 bunch of green onion chopped

1 lime forked for its juice

1 jalapeno pepper chopped

1/2 of a red onion diced

1 small bunch of cilantro (maybe 3 tablespoons) chopped

1 small bunch of sweet basil chopped

1 small bunch of flat leaf parsley chopped

2 cloves of garlic minced

2 12 oz. cans of low sodium V-8

1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

1-2 refined sugar

I put all of the ingredients in a big mixing bowl and used an immersion blender, one of the best kitchen gadgets out there, to blend it all together.