Chilled Gazpacho Soup and No-Knead Bread

So we didn't plan this, but we ended up having a Spanish dinner in honor of Spain winning the 2012 Eurocup (and the 2010 World Cup...and the 2008 Eurocup...). I had always been under the impression that gazpacho was an Italian dish (the losing team, taking a painful 4-0 loss in the final game, due to injuries and being down a player), but after a little research I discovered its origins are actually in Andalucia and it is a popular Spanish cuisine. How perfect!

Little did I know when I decided to make this as one of my Sunday night dinners, that it would take me so long to make. It's not that gazpacho is a hard dish, it's just that I am a painfully slow chopper and gazpacho requires a lot of cutting of veggies. It literally took me an hour to prepare all the vegetables, which is pretty pathetic. I used a recipe from our Simply in Season cookbook, which I noticed varied a bit from some Google research of how to chop tomatoes for gazpacho (I wanted to make sure they weren't diced too big). Apparently a lot of people puree their gazpacho, but I have always had it made similar to the way I made it last night.

In addition to making gazpacho, I also made no-knead bread rolls. Will had prepped the dough to rise and right before he left for soccer he had discovered that one of our kitties (most likely Emma) had knocked the towel into the dough, potentially destroying the rise! Luckily the bread still turned out okay. Can't say the same for the towel (we haven't figured out how to get all the dough off yet). Below you will find both the recipes.

Chilled Gazpacho Soup (adapted from Simply in Season; serves 6)
4 (cups) tomatoes (chopped)
2 cups beef broth
1 cup cucumber (diced)
1 cup green or red sweet pepper (diced)
1 cup celery (diced)
1/2 cup yellow or red onion (diced)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
several dashes Worcestershire sauce
10-12 drops Tabasco pepper sauce (we don't have Tabasco so I threw in a teeny bit of sriracha)
6 ice cubes (I did 8 to help it chill quicker)
green onions or chives (chopped; optional) 
extra cucumber to put on top like croutons

Mix together. Allow soup to stand for 30+ minutes to let the ice cubes chill the soup and for the flavors to mingle.

No-Knead Bread (adapted from Budget Bytes; serves 8)
3 1/4 cups flour
3/4 tbsp yeast
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups water
corn meal

In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast, salt and water until dough forms. Cover loosely with a towel and let sit for 2 hours. Prepare baking sheets with either tinfoil or parchment paper, liberally covered in cornmeal.

After the dough rises, sprinkle generously with flour and coerce it onto a floured surface. Cut up into 12 balls. Place balls onto baking sheets and let rise for another hour. Dough may spread more than rise, but this is okay!

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. After an hour, sprinkle with a little flour before cutting and "X" shape into the top of each ball with a sharp knife to allow bread to breath while baking. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Serve immediately!

Recipe: Budget Bytes: No-Knead Bread

The veggies that took me an hour to chop

The recovered dough

The final product!