Souped up

My Cool green gazpacho

This is the kind of thing that evolves when I open the fridge, find all the green things I can, then roughly chop them and blitz the daylights out of the whole shebang.

Serves 4 as a starter.

Add another avo or cucumber or two if you’re hungry.

• 2 ripe but firm avocado’s, peeled and roughly chopped
• 8 baby Israeli cucumbers, roughly chopped ( or ½ a cucumber)
• 3 spring onions, tops removed, roughly chopped
• Zest and juice of one lime
• Handful of basil leaves, gently torn ( but keep 2 big ones for garnish)
• 1 green pepper, pips end membrane removed, roughly chopped
• Salt
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 300ml sparkling lemonade
• Dollop of greek yoghurt
• 100- 200g streaky bacon (get good stuff, from a butchery proper. Not even Woolworths has proper streaky bacon in this country- I recommend Super Meats in Main Road, Kenilworth for their amazing bacon (and their beef fillet, incidentally).

1. Pop your soup bowls in the freezer. Preheat your oven grill to a serious degree. 
2. Like I said: Bang all of the above except the greek yoghurt and bacon in a food processor and blitz, blitz, blitz. Add more lemonade if you want it more runny, add more avo if you want it more silky, and add more cucumber if you want to bulk it up.
3. Now you and the soup chill out for 2 hours or so. I freeze my chilled soup in the ice compartment of the freezer for 45 minutes or so before serving- If it’s a really hot day its nice to have icey bits and slush floating around.
4. Lay out the streaky bacon on a trivet placed on a roasting tray. Place under a very hot grill, turning once, until super- crispy.
5. Serve ladlefuls in your chilly bowls, with a dollop of greek yoghurt in the centre and some basil chiffonade on top. Serve the crispy bacon shards on the side. Ooh. So nice.

(To make up a proper filling lunch, I did some bruschettas topped with basil, peppadew and boerenkaas, liberally doused with avocado oil and sprinkled with Maldon Salt.)