We made all the food ourselves for the party and I found this really great recipe for 'smoked tomato gazpacho.' It sounded easy enough and was definately different which is what I always look for when I choose recipes. I know I'm new to the blogging world so for those of you who don't know, or haven't been invited to dinner--- I love to cook! Love love love to cook! If this whole 'design thing' doesnt work out for me, I hope I end up being a personal chef to someone fabulous! Anyway--- back to the tomato soup!
The recipe said to put the tomatoes in boiling water, to take them out and peel the skin off, to cut them in half and de-seed them then for the kicker--- put WOOD CHIPS into the bottom of an aluminum pan, place the tomato halves on a glazing rack and put the glazing rack into the pan above the wood chips. whew!- 30 minutes in one sentence is a lot to take in! The recipe said to put the pan on a very hot eye on the stove and allow the tomatoes to "HEAVY SMOKE" for 3- 4 minutes. (heavy smoking inside the house should have been my first tip off... NEVER DO THAT!) So I wrapped the entire bundle in aluminum foil (as the recipe said) so that the smoke didnt escape into the kitchen.
I put the pan on the eye and watched it for a second. (Smoke escapes from aluminum packets if you didnt know.) So it was seeping out, but not at an alarming rate so I just pulled the battery out of the smoke detector so that it wouldnt go off. When I got back into the ktichen, there was thick black smoke puffing from the bottom of the pan... the pan was obviously burning so I moved it off the eye and set it on the counter so that I could turn off the stove. When I looked back over at the pan, there were puffs of green smoke coming from underneath pan--- the formica counter top was burning!!! NEVER A DULL MOMENT! I grabbed the pan again and ran out of the kitchen, through the living room and onto the porch. I set the pan down on the porch--- now that I look back, I dont really know why my first reaction was to take the smoking pan outside, I guess just to get the smokingness out of the house...
It wasnt even that easy to do. I had to hold the pan in front of me and inhale smoke as I ran...
So I left the tomatoes on the porch while I went to check on the smokey kitchen. When I got back there was a nice char mark that was still smoking on the counter top--- how unfortunate!
Once I got the windows open and recovered the tomatoes from outside, I continued the recipe and finished the soup!--- Which turned out great! They certainly provided that smoked flavor!
Hooray for adventures! Oh, and don't fret over our counter top... there had obviously been other unfortunate incidents because there are prevous battle scars. (Mine, however is the newest, most obvious, and largest of them all. I win!)
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