So my garden worked out pretty well this year! Even with all the squirrels I still had more tomatoes, hot peppers and celery than I could handle.  And then a soup was born! I was inspired by traditional Gazpacho recipes.  I love the texture of this soup. It’s blended, but not a puree. Be careful not to over blend.

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 chopped white onion
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 2 cups diced carrots
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 8 cups diced tomatoes
• 1 chopped hot pepper of choice (I used hot banana pepper, add more if you want more heat)
• 2 large leeks, white part only
• 1 cup diced green pepper
• 1/2 head roasted garlic
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (vegan)
• 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground cumin seed

Worcestershire Sauce can have all kinds of nasties in it.  Why does no one question what “natural flavour” is? Drives me nuts! It’s often MSG. The Wizard brand is the cleanest pre-made sauce I’ve found. It does however have soy in it.   This brand is available in many grocery stores.  I made a soy free version and it was lovely, I just have no idea how I made it.  I will have to try again.

Instructions:

Beautiful Veggies – I grew them!

Nice and chunky

1. Add olive oil to a large stock pot and warm over medium high heat. Add onions and salt, sauté for a couple minutes until they start to become translucent.
2. Add celery, carrot and cook for 5 minutes.  Add everyone else into the pot, stir until all ingredients are mixed nicely together.
3. Cover the pot and let simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the carrots are cooked.
4. Blend in batches.  It took me 3 blender batches to do this whole pot.   You can puree if you prefer, but I like mine chunky!

Soup freezes well.

Serve with seed crackers. You can also top with cashew sour cream, basil or arugula.