Lucky for us, our lovely neighbors have tomatoes in their garden. Big ones, not the little guys like we have and they share them with us often. Last week, I came home and found a large bag of gorgeous tomatoes sitting on our porch. It was awesome.

That being said, I needed to find a good use for our abundance of tomatoes and thought of making gazpacho. I had never made it before, but it turned out delightful and we ate a giant batch in two days!

On a small side note, my husband yelled across our backyard fence to thank our neighbors for being so generous and our neighbor’s response was, “No problem. The dog only pees on every other tomato.” I died laughing.

Tomato (Basil) Gazpacho:

2 lbs tomatoes, halved

I red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1/2 of a large cucumber, chopped

1 cup of red onion, chopped

1/2 cup of bread crumbs

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1-2 garlic cloves (depending on your love of garlic), minced

1 cup cold water

dash of cumin

dash of red pepper

salt and pepper to taste

Handful of fresh basil, torn

Handful of fresh parsley, torn

1. Squeeze the tomato halves to get the juice out. Don’t use the seeds, so strain into a bowl. You might have to mush the tomatoes in your hands to get all the juice out. Throw away the seeds. Chop the tomatoes and add to the juice.

2. Add all ingredients to the bowl.

3. Puree ingredients with 1 cup water in a blender. You might want to work in batches. Pour back into bowl.

4. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. The longer the ingredients blend the better. Serve cold with a couple of basil leaves as garnish.