Gazpacho

Very delicious! I slightly amended the recipe, though. The recipe calls for half a stock cube to be added directly into the soup. I try to avoid stock cubes whenever I can, and this clearly was one situation where I thought it couldn't do any harm to try it out without - and it worked! I didn't add any salt or pepper either, and I enjoyed the taste of the vegetables with the edge provided by the garlic as it was. I also left out the raw onion (I don't like raw onions).

I do find it a little strange that this recipe was presented as the "foodies cooking school" with step-by-step illustrations - they didn't actually explain or show anything you couldn't expect a beginning cook to know. What is more, the gap between this recipe and the pretenses of many of the others (see e.g. the indexed Ham Mousse with Fennel Salad) are so large that you can't wonder whom they have in mind as a target group. Also, I disliked that afterwards I discovered a herb on the picture (thyme, I think) that isn't even mentioned. No big deal, but it wouldn't be a big deal to mention it either, would it?

As except for the croutons no cooking is involved (blanching tomatoes doesn't count, you can do that in a water cooker), this recipe is as good as camping-proof, and very definitely moving-and-kitchenless-proof. Well, you'll need a blender or a kitchen machine, so may be you should forget about this being camping-proof.

Amendment 13. July 2010: This isn't enough for four servings, rather three, unless you serve it as a starter. The two of us shared whatever was left and ate it with extra croutons, half a cucumber, and two hard boiled eggs, at Elizabeth David's suggestion.